


strike twice

by NikoArtagnan



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mythology - Freeform, Other, Spirits, The World is a Strange Place, Unreliable Narrator, even moreso than the magical mafia would have you believe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8803726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikoArtagnan/pseuds/NikoArtagnan
Summary: DOWN FOR REWORK





	1. there's a beginning here somewhere

_Once upon a time, there was a girl._

_She was just a girl – quiet, insecure, a bit unsure of herself. She preferred to be alone than to be with others – but she quite liked having friends and people to talk with. She loved her mom more than anyone else, and tripped over her own words when she spoke to attractive people._

_She wasn’t ordinary, nor was she extraordinary. She was just a girl, and like so many other girls, she walked and breathed and went about that business called Life as best she could._

_Then that girl – now a woman - died._

_It wasn’t a heroic death, by any means. She died on the operating table._

_Not from cancer, or any terminal illness. She was having a perfectly benign tumor removed from her neck and there was an error. A perfectly reasonable mistake, the doctors would later explain to her grieving mother._

_There was a dead woman, a dead child forever in eyes of her mother, and it was ‘a perfectly reasonable mistake’?_

_(The mother and her husband mourned and grieved for the rest of their lives, they sue the hospital and the doctors who killed their child, but, eventually…_

_Eventually there was another girl, who would think of her dead sister every time she looked on the smiling portrait above the fireplace in the house where her adopted family had brought her. And that girl would wish she had gotten the chance to know her big sister.)_

_It should have been the end of that woman, who had died on the operating table in the middle of her quiet, uneventful life. She should have gone onto her next reward, be it heaven or hell or nothing at all._

_She thought herself that she was destined for a version of Purgatory. She had never been anyone great or pure, of course, but then again she had never really done anything all that worthy of Hell._

_But then she opened her eyes and realized she was alive yet again, and-_

_Well, that was…_

Interesting _._

* * *

**(one)**

There was a foreign exchange student entering Namimori Middle School.

It was worth quite a bit of excited talk among the students, all of whom rhapsodized eagerly on what said foreign exchange student would look like or if they were a boy or girl.

The girls of the class were certain that the student had to be a ‘dashing, bad-boy Yankee type’, while all the boys were positive that it would be a ‘beautiful, exotic princess-type’. What strange name would the student have, they wondered?

He or she was from America after all, the land of _Hollywood_ and other wild things.

But the reality of it was…rather lackluster. (They would have to wait another year for a truly exotic and dangerously wild foreign exchange student to appear.)

The girl was tall for her age, and fat in a way that would have many girls making snide comments behind their hands in the weeks to follow. She wore her perfectly starched uniform with the unease of one not well used to uniforms – or skirts, for that matter – and her black hair was pulled back into a long ponytail.

Her round face was placid, her full lips set in a bored line, and her eyes were a boring shade of grey-

“My name is Myles Delano.”

-and she made less than a ripple in the fabric of the school, beyond the requisite bullying.

That was, quite honestly, exactly what she wanted.

(Sawada Tsunayoshi – fully ensconced in his title of ‘Dame-Tsuna’ at this point - did not come to school that day, at home with a severe case of the flu as he was. He did not come to school for a week, and by that time Myles Delano was already a nonentity. His eyes would skip over her when he came back, and Myles-

Myles sighed in relief as he did.)

* * *

Her name wasn’t Myles Delano.

She had birth certificates and all the proper identification stating that she was _indeed_ Myles Delano, the only child of middle-class elementary school teacher Mary Delano and an absent father.

On her sixteenth birthday, Myles would receive a driver’s license and a credit card, paid for by her grandfather – Robert Delano, whose lineage was well established by any who cared to look – both of which would be under the name _Myles Delano_.

But her name wasn’t, in fact, Myles Delano. It was a name she had been given when she had been released from her family, when her mother had looked at her and said _you are ready to leave_.

(She had been thirteen at the time, if you wanted to know, though she acted like a woman many years older.)

No, her name was _Rusalka de la Noye_. She was the daughter of an unknown father – that much _was_ truth – but her mother was not a school teacher. Her mother was-

Well.

_That will come later, I suppose._

She was named for her mother’s patron, named below the man’s throne. She remembered being named, in a way no child ever should have been. She looked up at the…man (was he, really?) holding her, and she did not cry.

Instead she watched, in absolute wonder.

* * *

The moment Rusalka de la Noye was capable of it, she looked up into her mother’s eyes and said she wanted to be strong. She wanted to be like _Rock Lee_. She loved _Rock Lee_ with a goddamn burning passion.

Rusalka had watched as her mother cleaved her great sword through their enemies with the same passion a girl who had become a woman had watched _Rock Lee_ , and wanted it.

Her mother, of course, had no earthly clue who _Rock Lee_ was. He did not exist in their world, in a real or fictional sense.

But she indulged her daughter in her desires, as she was able to do so little else for her strange child.

Rusalka de la Noye had never been so strong before. She loved it.

(She had died because of her own body, because it was not strong enough. _Never again_ , Rusalka would whisper. _Never again_.)

When Rusalka de la Noye was ten years old, she shattered a wall with her bare hand.

_Nicely done._

* * *

Her mother was not human, and neither were the people that surrounded her.

Rusalka took it better than most would. She could shatter buildings with her bare hands and her mother carried a sword everywhere, after all. She had uncles that could fade through shadows, aunts who could make the air dance with their hands, and countless cousins and friends-of-the-family who had pointed ears and wicked teeth and some who even had fur.

(She looked like she was ten years old, but time was-time was weird here. How long had she lived? How long had her mother? She didn’t know-)

But, those names-

“Titania and Oberon demand I meet with them,” her mother said, sighing loudly. “As does Mab. I thought the King would have long since put an end to their squabbling when you were born, but it is what it is, I suppose. _Politics_.”

“Titania?” Rusalka asked, her fingers trembling.

“You need not worry if they will interfere in your life, Rusa,” her mother assured her. “We are of the King himself, and not even the Courts would interfere with one of his. Though they will try.”

“T-Then why do we have to meet with them?”

“Balance, Rusa. It’s what we are. It’s what we do. And they-” Her mother rubbed her face with a sigh. “They want to see you.”

“Me?” Titania and Oberon and Mab – the goddamn Fae royalty – wanted to see her? _Why_?

“You are of our world and the human world, Rusa. Your father was half-human, and born of the exiles.”

This-

This was probably _not_ a good thing.

Shit.

* * *

Rusalka was a quiet child.

But _quiet_ did not mean _obedient_.

Quiet did not mean willing to fall over and beg for mercy when a scary Fae glared at you. Quiet did not mean being naïve and believing that a soft, pale hand offered by a smiling Fae meant friendship.

Titania and Oberon and Mab and all their Courts were  _entranced_ by this tiny girl-child, who parried insults slid underhand or flung outright towards her mother with casual, vicious ease. Oberon would complain to anyone in hearing that the girl was not born one of theirs, that her father escaped to the Human realms before someone could get a proper hold on him.

Puck told anyone in hearing that he will marry Rusalka – no last name, in the Courts, because names are power – when she was old enough.

(Rusalka becomes infamous among all Fae for being the only person ever who had successfully pranked Puck. She never admits just how she did it, either.)

Rusalka looked up at her mother, and told her “I do not like it there.”

Her mother – clad in her bright-silver-black armor, her eyes like green fire – did not blame her at all for that.

She had the attention of the Courts, good and proper.

(And that was never a good thing to have)

Rusalka kept very quiet from then on. She did not want any more Attention than she already had.

(Puck came to her on her next birthday, and whispered that _he would have her_ in her ear while she slept, and Rusalka woke screaming.

The Seelie are, if you want to be honest, no less Fae than the Unseelie, for all they may be beautiful and achingly bright. And they are no less cruel, in their own ways.)

* * *

Rusalka called the lightning when she was thirteen. Called it, and it burned through her like a living thing.

Her mother did not look surprised, and took her to the King the next day.

The man-who-was-not-a-man was not surprised either.

(He called her _granddaughter_ , that day. He said it was only a shame that she did not inherit the Sky.

_Perhaps her daughter would…?_

Rusalka would not understand what he meant for a long, long time.)

* * *

Rusalka’s mother knew that even with the tattoos etched into her daughter’s flesh by their King, that it would not be enough.

But there was a city, protected from Fae, protected with the blood of a man who came long, long before.

Out of sight, out of mind worked well for humans, and even better for the Fae, who were notoriously fickle creatures, their minds rarely resting on one thing (one person) for long.

Rusalka's mother did not want her keen-eyed daughter, who looked so much like the man she had shared a single night with, to fall prey to what the Fae could do. _Would_ do.

(Rusalka's mother’s line had been the Knights and Champions of both Courts before she had broken tradition to return to her roots. Her mother knew, better than most, what became of those with the attention of the Courts.

She’d seen it in the eyes of Rusa’s father, after all.)

Rusalka was growing bold and strong, her shoulders broad, her eyes sharp as knives. She preferred a warhammer to her mother’s sword, but she was decent with a blade. She was no Rock Lee, not yet-

But she would get there, in time.

However, she could not do that if Puck was whispering obscenities in her ears while she slept and the Courts were baying for her to join them.

She agreed to her mother’s proposal to send her away.

(What the woman Rusalka had once feared more than anything – more than spiders or death or any named horror in the world – was having her will taken from her. Having herself forced to follow anyone’s rules and laws, being bound and chained-

It was the promise of that, not the things Puck whispered, that truly made her scream. In amongst the cruel, taunting, arousing words was the implied threat:

_I will do what I want with you._

And nothing else in _any_ life could have scared Rusalka more.)

* * *

Rusalka had listened to her aunts and uncles, who taught her how to survive in the human world. She had listened to their money-workers, who taught her how to use the bank accounts that would be set up.

She had listened to the King, who had wished her good luck.

She had packed all her things carefully, with lists to help her with things she should do

…Perhaps she should have asked her mother the name of the place she would be going to.

“Welcome to Namimori, Delano-san,” the chirpy, borderline syrupy ‘caretaker’ who had been assigned to Myles Delano by Child Services or something said.

Rusalka was struck with a combination of peculiar shock and resignation as she looked out the window to see a city she vaguely recognized from a fictional show in the Before-

What.

The.

 _Fuck_.

* * *

But see, here’s the thing:

Rusalka knew how to be quiet. She’d had a lifetime – and a half – of learning how to do so.

She could keep her head down. She wanted no part of the Mafia, of Flames (even though that was what she realized she _had_ ), or of _Vongola_.

Most of all, she wanted nothing to do with Sawada Tsunayoshi.

(Rusalka had liked her quiet, uneventful life in the Before. She wanted it again. She would have it again.)

Someone far, far, far away – or perhaps it was No one at all – laughed long and hard at that.


	2. a problem with tightropes

_The world was a wide, scary place, but really it wasn’t so bad at all. Not when she had people she quite liked near._

_Rusalka de la Noye was small, just barely able to walk, and she was learning. She was learning the Rules of her new life._

_Her (new) mother was great and grand and looked at her with quiet disappointment-love-wonder. Like Rusalka did not reach her expectations but still had to be loved in any case. Was still loved, with a whole-whole heart._

_Rusalka remembered that from her old life as well. A mother that loved her in spite of all the ways that she failed._

_(In spite of all the ways that she wasn’t good enough.)_

_It started from there, that knowledge that her mother (mothers, in both lives) saw her as less._

_“I want to learn how to fight,” Rusalka de la Noye said quietly, clutching with her small, stumpy fingers the armor wrapped around her mother’s leg. “I want to fight like Rock Lee.”_

_Rock Lee was strong. If Rusalka was like him, she could be strange and weird but then her mother would be happy, because if Rusalka was like him Rusalka would be strong as well._

_“Who is Rock Lee?” her mother asked._

_Rusalka explained very carefully, and her mother_ smiled _, like maybe for the first time she understood her child, who was strange even by_ their _standards._

_“I don’t see why not,” her mother said, and then she hesitated._

_Then a heavy, gauntleted hand rested on Rusalka’s head, and ruffled her hair._

* * *

**(two)**

It was stranger than she expected, getting used to living life as a middle-schooler.

A middle-schooler in _Japan_ , no less, but there were parallels nonetheless among the life she’d lived so long ago and the one she’d had to assume now. Parallels she had clung to like a lifeline, in the first days she had attended Namimori.

If she’d simply moved from that life before into this one now, she wouldn’t have had as much trouble, but she’d still had those years in between to trip her up. Her years as _Rusalka_ , not _Myles_.

It had been even more of a road hazard in keeping her head down than she would have expected.

Rusalka had been used to slinging her body around casually, among relatives and friends who wouldn’t even buckle if she accidentally misjudged her strength. She’d been used to filmy clothes, partial nudity in the face of heat or not wanting clothes to get in her way. She’d done what pleased her, spent days staring at nothing or days doing nothing but fighting, eating what she wanted, talking to who she wanted-

She’d been used to no rules, or to only very few Rules at all.

But _Myles Delano_ , on the other hand, had to abide by a hundred thousand different rules, not just the unwritten ones of human society. She had to keep her black hair long and neat, had to wear clothing with no stains, clothing that perfectly fit her body. She had to wear skirts and bow and flutter her hands apologetically when she made a mistake. She had to be _gentle_ and _soft_ , like a proper teenage girl.

Myles Delano had to keep her head down and make no waves.

Rusalka de la Noye had made waves simply by _existing_.

A hand went to the pendant hidden beneath her uniform, cold metal and warm wood, hanging from a hemp necklace. It beat like a second heart above her own, and the faint tension in her shoulders eased.

It had been a gift from her Uncle before she had left. Made with old, old magics that not even the Fae could track, it allowed her to pass unseen by most, if not all of the people around her. It didn’t make her invisible, but rather made her _unnoticeable_ , to an extent.

People simply overlooked her. They saw that she was there and _dismissed_ her in the same breath. It made her life so much easier.

(It had made it very lonely, the many days, weeks, _months_ she had spent here.)

Myles looked at herself in the mirror.

Her hair was pulled back into a low, ‘demure’ braid, her eyes a steady – unchanging – shade of grey, her prim Namimori uniform finely starched and perfectly tailored to fit her body. What makeup she wore was subtle, just barely enough to soften the lines of her face into something average.

 _Average_.

She scowled, and a hint of Rusalka de la Noye’s wildness peeked out, eyes flashing and mouth curling in a smile that promised pain to someone. It was a soothing sight, after it had spent so long hidden.

Carefully, she smoothed her face to placidity, and Myles Delano was there once more.

“Time for school,” Myles said, as she had said every day for the past six months. Then she turned sharply on her heel, and walked out the door.

* * *

Myles would wake up each day, and go to school. She would eat breakfast, get a shower, and get dressed.

She would attend school each day, sit through her classes, fading into the background. She would eat lunch either by herself or with a group of carefully picked acquaintances, and then attend more classes.

Then she would return home. She would finish her homework, practice her dances or her fighting moves, and eat dinner.

After a call from a relative – usually from Uncle or Artemisios – she would go to bed.

Days passed. Life went on, and Myles went along with it.

(Puck did not caper in her dreams, certainly, but she missed the airy Halls of the King, she missed having all of her cousins right around the corner whenever she wanted a spar, she missed the flowing robes and loose breeches and the weapons and gods all, how she missed her true _face_ -

But when Uncle mentioned that her name had not been mentioned for weeks beyond a sly remark from a courtier, Myles told herself that _it would all be worth it_.)

* * *

Every day for six months, Myles had followed her routine, had followed by her Rules, and kept a close eye on the pendant hanging beneath the stark-white of her uniform. She had made four friends – well, _acquaintances_ was a more accurate term – and kept a respectable class ranking.

It was nothing to write home about, but it neither alienated her acquaintances nor made her the subject of ridicule at the hands of their teachers.

And having the… _acquaintanceship_ of Mizuiro Akemi and her cronies protected her from all else.

Soon after Myles had endeared herself to Akemi, Miwa, Rina, and Sayuri, the bullying that Myles had been suffering (under clenched teeth, with a close-to-snapping restraint that had just _barely_ held back the urge to sic her cousins on them) had stopped. Who knew having a thorough knowledge of ‘Hollywood bad boys’ and the comedic timing for witty one-liners would make her so likable?

Having those four to occasionally eat lunch with and gossip about _boys_ also served another purpose. It kept the school’s pretty and softly sweet idol, one Sasagawa Kyoko, from taking interest in her. Kyoko was known for taking an interest in poor and pitiful students who had no friends and were bullied. Saint Kyoko, she was called, both reverently and cruelly.

_Saint Kyoko, she who looked down on them all to make herself seem the better person. Why else would she speak with Sawada Tsunayoshi?_

_Saint Kyoko and Dame-Tsuna._

Myles felt her lips curl into a most un-Myles-like sneer and quickly uncurled them. Children, she thought with no little disgust. Children were pitiful, _pathetic_ things.

 _Like you?_ a tiny voice in her head sneered. _Tell me how many times you ignored Sawada Tsunayoshi when you saw him bullied and could have helped. Tell me how many times you could have worked to make things better for him, either through subtle actions or blatant ones? Tell me how many times you turned away when he was kicked and beaten and humiliated, and then you can tell me about pitiful_ , pathetic _things._

“Myles-chan!”

Myles shook away that nasty, bitter voice, and smiled at Rina, who chattered to her about some recent new pop star whose name she didn’t know and whose love life she cared even less about.

 _Keep your head down, my girl_ , her mother had said. _It would come to ill if you did not._

So Myles gritted her teeth, and kept her head down.

* * *

Sawada Tsunayoshi wasn’t half as pathetic as most people seemed to think he was. He was rather like a small woodland animal, trembling and fluffy.

He did seem rather listless with it all, Myles thought, watching him out of the corner of her eye. She shouldn’t, but it was just so fascinating. Here was a fictional character from a fictional series she had somewhat enjoyed, and he was just sitting there.

Obviously not fictional any longer.

It was just so _fascinating_ , and the allure hadn’t worn off, even after six months of being in the boy’s class.

As she doodled in her notebook, paying only a small amount of attention to the teacher’s ramblings, she watched Tsuna carefully.

Like most main protagonists of manga who attended schooling for lower grades did, the boy had a tendency to stare out the window, looking to the clouds like they held some sort of answer to his prayers.

He was so small and slight, like a reed. There was barely anything in him to denote a Mafia Boss, much less anything of interest, of value.

But that was the point, wasn’t it, surrounding certain manga heroes? They were just barely noticeable, well below even average standards. She supposed that made it far better for the audience to appreciate the trials and tribulations of said protagonist, as they became a hero.

Or something.

 _Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy_ , her cousin Artemisios’s voice whispered in her ear, and gooseflesh prickled down Myles’ spine.

That was no problem of hers, she thought, but still her eyes flicked back up to the boy once more-

And her eyes locked with a pair of brown, somewhat curious ones. He was watching her.

He was watching her, and Myles couldn’t bring herself to look away.

If she was asked later, she never would have been able to say just what entranced her so. They weren’t especially beautiful eyes, just a simple brown color. She’d been around people who possessed eyes of every color imaginable, and a fair few more that could never be described by human words. One of her cousins had eyes that contained literal galaxies within them. Yet another was a siren whose actual _power_ manifested through the ‘alluring hues’ of her eyes.

She’d spent a long time learning from her teachers how to resist every trick and seduction by the Fae.

And yet, Sawada Tsunayoshi grabbed and held her with a single look.

Her fingers were shaking around her pen, and some still present part of her managed to convince her fingers reach up to the pendant resting against her heart.

 _Look away, look away, ignore me, ignore me_ , she chanted in her head, cold sweat trickling down her back. _For fuck’s sake, look_ away _-_

“Sawada!”

The crack of a ruler striking down on Tsuna’s desk broke the connection, and as Tsuna flailed and the rest of the class laughed, Myles dragged her eyes back down to the desk and her notebook.

…Where she’d apparently doodled a rather intricate sketch of the Vongola crest.

 _God_ fucking _damn it_ , she thought, and hurriedly erased it.

* * *

“KYAAAAA! GO YAMAMOTO-KUN!!!”

The shriek cut directly through Myles’ head, and it took every inch of her control not to groan. The migraine from hell was beginning to beat an unsteady tempo against her temples.

She would have liked nothing more than to go home and sit in a cool, dark room for at least twenty minutes. But Miwa had asked her to come along to the baseball game, and she couldn’t very well have refused without raising some eyebrows.

After all, what girl in their right mind would have missed seeing Yamamoto Takeshi (the school’s handsome male idol) in action?

 _I prefer his older self_ , Myles thought irritably, the migraine increasing only still more so.

Gods, she didn’t want to have to join in with the admiring and bordering on lewd comments made about a _thirteen-year-old boy_. She’d been able to divert any of the remarks addressed towards her previously by making offhand remarks, steering the conversation, but this was only going to increase their expectancy that she join in.

It made her feel _even more_ of a pedophile than hanging around with fourteen-year-olds and listening to them talk about their crushes _already_ did. At least the fact that they were in a public place restrained the four girls from being too…overt.

“Isn’t he wonderful, Myles-chan?!” Bright-eyed Sayuri, with her fluttering lashes and perfectly honed aura of utter ‘moe’, nudged Myles’ side as Yamamoto sent a ball thundering into the outfields with one swing.

 _He’s a fucking freak, is what he is_ , Myles thought, but she didn’t say that.

Instead, she grinned at Sayuri with the same childish fascination. “He’s really good. Back home, he’d have definitely been scouted when he got older.”

“Ehhhh, really!”

Myles nodded, turning her attention back to Yamamoto. He really was a very good baseball player, if a bit too intense about it all. A bit too obsessed.

A bit too fake.

Couldn’t any of the rest of them see that? He acted like some of the courtiers and knights in the Courts did, all to get approval and attention of his peers.

Like that Seelie knight who slaughtered as many Unseelie as he could, his eyes always flickering desperately to Titania to see what she thought. Like the noble who had parties and laughed and played as hard and best as she could, but was never fulfilled.

The person who was capable of reading just what the people around him would respond best to, and doing everything in his power to make sure that happened. It was scary as hell.

And in a few years, once he got the full-force of his charisma, life experiences, and good-looks behind him, it would be fucking terrifying.

 _Stay the hell away from me, Yamamoto Takeshi_ , Myles thought, even as she made the effort to cheer along with Miwa. _I don’t need another one like_ him _to deal with it._

(It hadn’t been Puck who’d come the closest to winning _Rusalka de la Noye_ over, you know.

It had been a Spring Court fey, one with bright eyes and an easy laugh. He’d been dark haired and eyed, and vicious and deadly and seductive and everything she ever wanted and he’d-he’d been _kind_. He’d been relentless in it, asking her questions, never insulting her or her mother.

He’d known what she was with only a single look, had listened to her quiet ramblings about the life she had once lived. And he had come the closest of them all to claiming her.

In the end, he’d discarded her.

Puck had convinced him to play a merry game with her as the prize, and Ariel had left her there once he lost, even though she’d begged him, pleaded and cried for him to save her from the man who had made her bleed and scream, it hadn’t mattered. It had all just been a game to him, and she, just a prize. A prize he’d lost, and it didn’t matter enough to say _this is wrong_.

Because Puck was Seelie and Ariel was Seelie but _Rusalka de la Noye_ was not fey, not in the ways that truly mattered.)

Myles looked down at the boy that reminded her so much of the boy who had broken her heart (broken _her_ ) and felt a wary sort of rage and grief and anguish.

 _I learned my lesson_ , she thought. _It won’t happen again._

Even if she hadn't needed to keep attention off her, she would have avoided Yamamoto Takeshi like the plague.

* * *

Hibari Kyōya was a terrifying little speck of a boy, and at the same actually quite hilarious.

He swanned around the school like he was someone important, like he was someone whose purported strength actually meant anything. But there was something in his eyes, something that craved blood, just barely held back by the slightest veneer of duty, loyalty to his territory, and Kusakabe Tetsuya.

If he had been her kin, Myles would have assumed that the boy had made the pompadour-wearing thug his anchor (for god only knows what reason). The more bloodthirsty of her kin, and even some of the Fae, had a tendency to do that. It helped things, and helped keep them sane.

But Hibari Kyōya’s only claim to some measure of non-humanness was the flame that lived in his belly, burning brighter and stronger and more violent than any she’d ever seen, even though she could rarely see people’s Flames.

And so his fierce and near homicidal claim over Kusakabe Tetsuya – disguised surprisingly artfully in a simple need for a second-hand man and someone to do the paperwork – was strange.

 _A weakness_ , a distant part of Myles thought (almost triumphantly), a part that Myles did not like. She shook it away.

But still, the boy was fascinating.

He was so brutal and vicious, just barely concealed under the light leash of civility. He attacked anyone (except for Tetsuya, amusingly enough) who he felt crossed the rules. He made no bones about his level of violence. All the teachers and administrative staff of Namimori were frightened to obedience by him. He spouted off about herbivores and crowding with impunity. He ruled Namimori Middle like a god-king, unquestioned in his fury and obeyed by all.

Myles knew at least four different people in her family alone who could have broken him in half without breaking a sweat. And that was without any real thought on the matter.

A strength that supposedly needed no one else, a strength that supposedly allowed no one else close – such ‘strength’ could be so easily broken. So easily shattered.

Myles thought about all the ways that Hibari Kyoya could be broken as he passed her in the halls with all the other students pressed against the wall to get out of his way. She thought about how easily it could happen and she  _smiled_ -

- _No_ , no, _nononononononononono_ gods what was she _thinking_?

There was a faint roaring in her ears, and it was only the flickering need to _keep control and keep her head down_ that got her through the rest of the day without cracking in half. She made her goodbyes to Akemi and Miwa and Sayuri and Rina (who all seemed to blur together into one mass of giggling and boys and neat school uniforms these days), and she made her way home.

All she wanted was twenty minutes to scream and scream and scream and break something, if that was at all possible. She wanted Uncle to tell her in his slow, melodic voice about different pantheons and Artemisios to hold her close and Arkadios and Berenike to be with her, cackling about some stupid new plan they had concocted.

She wanted the bright, glorious Halls and walking among them and she didn’t fucking want to keep talking about some stupid boy-idol she didn’t care about and she missed her family so much, she missed her mother and father most of all and why did it hurt so much-

A body slammed into her, and her hands shot out, catching them before they could fall. Her fingers met warm, soft skin, and she heard a startled shriek.

 _There is a flame in my arms_ , Myles thought, nonsensically.

And she looked down into the wide eyes of Sawada Tsunayoshi.

 _Shit_ , was her next thought, followed closely on its heels by _I should probably let him go_.

But why? He was warm and soft and felt good. She hadn’t been touched by someone else in months and she had forgotten just how much she liked it.

“De-Delano-san?” The voice was squeaky and it drew her attention in again. Tsuna – _Sawada_ \- was looking up at her with no little amount of curiosity, fear, and…concern?

 _I messed up here_ , Myles thought with a rising sense of panic in her chest, and set Tsuna – call him _Sawada_ , for fuck’s sake – back on his feet.

Like that other time, weeks ago, Tsuna’s eyes remained firmly on her. He saw her, even with the pendant still beating against her chest.

 _Yeah, I’ve definitely messed up_ , Myles realized. She pulled back, only to stop when Tsuna’s fingers tangled in her sleeve, creasing and wrinkling it. Making it not-perfectly creased and starched.

“A-Are y-you all right, D-Delano-san?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.

She didn’t know what flashed across her face in response to that, but it made him shrink back, made him cower. He looked like he did right before the teachers berated him, right before his ‘peers’ humiliated him, right before people would inevitably call him _Dame-Tsuna_.

Myles knew what she would have to do. A sneering taunt about his clumsiness, a disdainful brush-off, “Stupid Dame-Tsuna.” It would drive him well away. The pendant would work its magic from there, and she would take her place among the countless others who mocked and berated him. Faceless, a true nonentity.

The words were right on her tongue, _come on you idiot, just say it and go on your way, just say it, Dame-Tsuna, Dame-Tsuna, Dame-_

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said instead, her voice gruff. “Sorry about that, Tsuna.”

And then her hand was landing on his hair, and she ruffled it. It was soft and fluffy, just like the rest of him. Soft and warm and like silk. Myles turned on a heel and walked away, leaving the boy standing there.

It was only when she got home that she realized that the roaring in her head was gone.


	3. going about things in all the wrong ways

_“I am different,” Rusalka de la Noye told the great, shadowy man._

_He said “call me Uncle” when they met, and had never offered another name._

_“You are,” he said, and stooped low so she could clamber into his arms. “But there is nothing wrong with such things. You are among many who are different, in their own ways.”_

_“I remember things,” Rusalka said, her fingers curling in his lapel. The halls curved by in a wild riot of portraits, whose eyes seemed to watch as they passed._

_“You do?”_

_“Yes. I lived…before.”_

_“Ah.” There was a great deal of weight in that single word._

_“I made her sad, because I could not call her Mama,” Rusalka whispered._

_She could not call the strange, armored woman who taught her, that precious word. Her Mama was not tall and armored and powerful. Her Mama was heavyset and white-haired and full of sarcastic jokes. Her Mama was a teacher and loved children and cats. Her Mama cried and raged and laughed._

_This woman she was supposed to call Mama now did not._

_“Do you know she was sad?”_

_“I dunno. She just looked sad.”_

_They walked along in silence for a long time._

_“Rusalka,” he said finally. “You do not_ need _to call her Mama. She will accept that, in time.”_

_“…I wouldn’t mind,” she said. “Eventually. But…”_

_“You mourn still.”_

_Rusalka pulled back enough to look at him. She did. She did mourn, and she missed Mama and Papa so much it felt like dying (again). She couldn’t look at that strange, unknowable woman and call her Mama._

_It was like the highest betrayal, to give that name to a woman who didn’t even love her._

_The man sighed, and his features came more into focus. His eyes – and that was the first thing she truly noticed about him – were the color of obsidian, but warm by kindness hidden underneath._

_She liked them. She liked them a lot._

_Rusalka told him so, and decided in the moment after that, that she liked his (startled) laugh even more than his eyes._

* * *

**(three)**

_“Ah, Myles, how are you-”_

“How do I get someone to stop paying attention to me?”

The phone was silent for a good long while, before Myles’ uncle spoke again.

_“Are you still wearing the pendant I gave you? Is it still active?”_

Myles looked down at the pendant resting against her chest. It was still there, still carved with those unknowable designs (a boat etched with tridents around it – or was she just seeing things?), and pulsing like another heart.

“Yes, Uncle, to both questions.”

_“Did you perform the ritual as per my instructions?”_

“I made nightly offerings in the small woods behind the apartment, at the base of the tree that you deemed acceptable when I sent you pictures of it,” Myles confirmed. And she had.

The list of instructions Uncle had given her to empower the amulet – she’d followed them to the letter in her first week in Namimori. That had been her first and utmost priority, before even unpacking, and she’d only started attending school after she had buried the offering on that last Saturday.

_“Then who is giving you issue? Can you send me a picture of them?”_

“Let me check and see if I have a picture of him,” Myles said, and put her Uncle on hold.

She quickly flipped through her phone’s pictures – when the hell had Berenike gotten a hold of this phone and taken a bunch of selfies? Myles hadn’t even _gotten_ it until she’d arrived in Namimori – and found a picture she’d taken accidentally.

It was a bit blurry, a bit wobbly, probably taken when she was trying to figure out which button did what – it had been a while since she’d interacted with technology after all – and it showed a lot of Namimori students hurrying in through the gates. They were mostly a blur of color, and black/brown hair, but one student was in something approaching focus.

His body was slumped, but one could still easily make out his face. He looked tired and sad, but it was undoubtedly him.

_Sawada Tsunayoshi._ AKA the bane of Myles Delano’s existence for the past three weeks.

He was like a goddamn puppy. He followed her _everywhere_ , with that pathetically hopeful look on his face and she couldn’t bear swiping at him much for the same reason. He was just so…small. And fragile.

And _fluffy_.

_Confound my love for puppies_ , Myles thought irritably as she enlarged the picture to center on Tsu- _Sawada_ , for the fucking love of the gods. She had resorted to avoiding him with a vengeance, but he still had a knack for finding her.

And the pendant seemed to be working its magic on _him_ as well, now that she thought about it.

When Tsuna was near her and focused on her, the bullying and truly unnecessary commentary he was the victim of didn’t happen, or happened much more infrequently. People seemed to actually ignore him, their eyes sliding off and away from him whenever Tsuna found her.

She couldn’t fault the boy for realizing that and craving it – even if only on a subconscious level – even though it was a damned pain in her ass.

Myles sent the picture to her uncle, and waited for his response. There was silence for a long, long time, a silence that disturbed her.

After a time, she thought it might be appropriate to speak. “Ah…Uncle? Did you-”

_“What is this boy’s name, Rusalka?”_

She jolted at the use of her name. “Why do you want to-”

_“His name, **Rusalka de la Noye** ,”_ her uncle said, his voice only just a hair shy of a command.

“S-Sawada Tsunayoshi?” she offered, feeling a bit light-headed.

There was an exhale of breath in her ear, one that would have been a sigh in a man less elegant and polished than her uncle. Then she felt a touch like a hum, at the back of her neck. It eased the slight ache his not-quite-a-command had driven there.

_“Have you worked at driving him away, my girl?”_

Myles rubbed her face. “…no. I’ve just been trying to avoid him.”

_“Why not? Berenike could help you with insults, if you need. She’s quite…apt, at them.”_

Myles grimaced. Saying Berenike fa Vaal was _apt at insults_ was like saying that, on the rare occasion, the sun was _sometimes warm_.

Her cousin had driven more than one fool to tears with a single cutting remark, and had broken still more with her cruelty. Myles adored Berenike to pieces, but there was no way in hell Myles was going to use anything she would approve of on _Tsuna_.

“I can’t do that to him, Uncle.”

_“You cannot? Or you_ will _not?”_

She growled. “Both, the first, no, it’s just- _gods_ , I don’t fucking know.”

A faint laugh. _“Just like your mother.”_

“And what is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Another muffled laugh. _“Nothing, dear niece. Continue as you have, with avoiding him to the best of your nature, but…you do wish to help him, yes?”_

Myles groaned. “Yes, but I don’t want to get fucking involved in his life! I know he’s a goddamn, whatsit called? A chaos nexus, or whatever? Aunt Sybil taught me about that fucking nonsense-”

_“Language, Myles.”_

“…Sorry. But still!”

_“Be subtle about it, then. Or have you forgotten everything I have taught you?”_

“But Uncle-”

_“If this boy is who I think he is, you will be drawn to him in any case. Have it be done so on your terms. If you give the absolute minimum of effort into his life, with your pendant and what measures you have already taken, this should not…require more.”_

“What is ‘this’?” Myles asked, feeling as though the rug was slowly being ripped out from under her and being helpless to stop it.

_“Something I should have known you would run into a lot sooner. In two weeks, I will visit, and bring you what you will need to know.”_

“Why not now?” If there wasn’t something she didn’t know, something that Amano hadn’t put into the manga, it would only do her ill to put off learning it.

_“That moron known as Puck has been…sniffing around while I negotiate with two clans that have requested me. He assumes that I will use this opportunity in order to visit you. He will not be expecting me to do so after I have returned and presented my Judgement to the Courts.”_

Something cold slicked down her throat. It tasted a lot like panic.

“…That makes sense. Thank you, Uncle.”

_“Good dreams, my niece.”_

“And to you, Uncle.”

There was a soft click, and Myles leaned back in her chair. She stared out the window to her left without seeing the glorious sunset that drenched the city.

“Only have to put a small amount of effort, huh?” she asked herself. “What if I don’t want to? What if I want to run away screaming from all of this?”

But maybe it made sense, in a way.

Myles wouldn’t be revealing anything. She would only be extending a small gesture of comfort to a boy who needed it. He would still see her as ‘normal’, and if she played it right, so would everyone else. When he became involved in the Mafia, he would likely forget all about her. She didn’t have to publically declare her love for him or anything.

Her fingers shook.

It had been a very long time since she felt like Murphy’s Law was hanging just over her shoulder.

She didn’t like it.

* * *

“Oh, look at that,” Akemi said, tutting just a bit.

Myles looked up from her lunch. “What is it?”

Rina giggled a bit. “Poor Dame-Tsuna, Noboru-kun really doesn’t like him.”

Sayuri and Miwa were absent that day, which had led to Akemi and Rina sticking extra close to Myles. Even though that had been annoying, it had also led to Tsuna – _Sawada, Sawada, Sawada_ , it was a mantra she _had_ to remember if she was going to maintain any sort of distance from him – keeping away from her, which was an honest relief. There was only so much _sad puppy-dog eyes_ she could take.

Myles looked over and found the boy in question, cowering against the wall while the boy Rina had mentioned loomed over him, flanked by his cronies.

Sato Noboru was a brute, and looked every inch of it. He didn’t look an inch like an ordinary middle school student, too tall and muscled and thug-like by far. His eyes were cold and his face looked like a brick, and he enjoyed lording his ‘strength’ over those he deemed weaker. He also used his ‘strength’ to extort money or food out of his victim.

(And very often that victim was Sawada Tsunayoshi.)

_I called Kyōya’s ‘strength’ pathetic, but this fool is far more so_ , Myles thought idly, gritting her teeth as Noboru’s crony – a thin, lanky boy that looked like a stalk of broccoli – body-checked Tsuna to the ground.

At least Kyōya would be more than willing to back his words up. A single push in the right direction would humiliate Noboru more than words could describe.

_Crumpled like a house of cards_ , Berenike’s jeering voice crooned in her ear. _Come_ on _, Rusa, fuck this little bitch up, will you? He’s_ annoying _. I hate annoying people._

Tsuna squeaked as Noboru picked him up in one meaty hand, shaking him like a rag doll.

Over the boy’s shoulder, Tsuna’s eyes searched around frantically. What he was looking for, Myles had no idea. No one in the class would want to help. In fact, most of them were either watching the spectacle gleefully, or ignoring it like they always did.

_Like you_ , a nasty voice in her head whispered.

Myles eased up on her teeth as her jaw began to ache, and she tapped her fingers against her leg.

Tsuna’s eyes found hers, and for a moment Myles almost swore that she saw orange in them. He seemed to take a breath…what, like he was drawing strength from her presence or something? Then he turned his attention, and stuttered out a protest that was slightly less weak than it had been before.

His shoulders were a little straighter, a little less fragile-looking.

_What the buggering fuck_ , Myles thought, as Noboru flinched, just a little. He yielded ground.

Oh, maybe no one else had seen it, but _she_ had. Tsuna had done something – exerted his Will, if she remembered canon right – and Noboru had definitely backed down. _Holy shit_.

But then Noboru shoved his way back – like he was fighting something pressing against his body – and slammed Tsuna to the ground again.

Myles ground her teeth once more, the ache spreading across her skull as Rina sniggered. Tsuna didn’t look at her again, and there was an embarrassed flush on his cheeks.

She remembered that strange orange glow in Tsuna’s eyes, and she felt a strangeness in her belly.

_Something subtle_ , Myles thought then, recalling Uncle’s words. _Yeah,_ _I can do that._

Even though Berenike was like Uzumaki Naruto in all the worst ways (brash, loud, attention-seeking, a public menace), she was still Uncle’s child, and was scarily well-versed in that particular weapon called _subtlety_.

And she’d passed her own brand of subtle revenge onto Myles.

Myles wasn’t great at magic, and even if she was she wouldn’t be able to use a big working.

But all she needed was a mild spell. A _subtle_ one, but oh-so-wonderful in its results.

The tapping formed a pattern against her thigh, and Myles raised an eyebrow at Tsuna-

-just as Noboru’s pants (with aid from a severely weakened belt) slipped down around his feet.

There was a breathless moment of silence, before the class erupted in laughter. Everyone’s attention was on the tableau now, as Noboru desperately tried to pull his pants up and keep a grip on Tsuna.

Even his lackeys were backing away, trying to distance themselves from his humiliation.

Noboru flailed – which really wasn’t anywhere near half as cute a sight as it was when Tsuna was the one flailing – and tripped, crashing headfirst to the ground. The laughter grew louder, and Myles looked back at Tsuna.

He was biting his lip, trying his best not to smile. Myles jerked her head towards his seat when he saw her staring, and he gave a tiny nod.

In the midst of the chaos as Noboru tried to run out the door and keep his pants up among the laughing students, not a single person paid attention to Tsuna as he quietly took his seat.

Myles bit back a smirk, and turned to Rina and Akemi, both of whom were giggling at Noboru’s oh-so-unfortunate ‘accident’.

“Really, you’d think he could invest in a proper belt,” she murmured snidely, which set the two girls off even further.

As the rest of the day pressed on, every so occasionally, Myles would look at Tsuna and he would look at her. Tsuna would smile, just a little bit.

And Myles would smile too.

* * *

She still didn’t do anything overt, though.

When people mocked and laughed at him, she turned her head. When people beat him up, she didn’t intervene. When his money was stolen and his things trashed, she didn’t tell people to stop.

(And she would hate herself for that, because she knew how it felt. She _remembered_ , all too well.)

Myles had tried, only once. Akemi and the others had drawn back, after that. They’d began to draw their support away from her – oh, not in words, they were too much the image of overly polite and demure schoolgirls for that – but in action. Making snide comments to other people when they thought she couldn’t hear. Critiquing her clothes and her hair and her weight – all so politely, of course.

Bullying was unacceptable. If she had to go through any more of that, gods only knew what she would have done when she finally snapped. And without Akemi’s tacit ‘protection’, she would undoubtedly find herself on the receiving end of that nonsense once more and she very definitely would have snapped.

So Myles had withdrawn her outright support very quickly, and gone back to snarking the occasional one liner and quip to amuse Akemi and her friends.

(She hated it so, so, so much, and she hated even more the way Akemi would _look_ at her sometimes, like she was a badly-dressed bear on a leash, exotic and something to parade around. Like she was a _toy_ )

But there were other ways of helping.

(Tsuna found bruise ointment sitting in his locker after his bullies used him as a target during dodgeball in PE. When people extorted his Mama’s lovingly made lunch from him, or took his money, later he would find food, or enough money to replace what he’d lost in his backpack or locker or even in his own pockets.

When Nakano Masashi beat Tsuna within an inch of his life, he later lost his eyebrows to a massive – and _utterly_ accidental - explosion in chemistry. Along with a good portion of his hair. And a good chunk of his parents’ money – but, of course it was all _his_ fault, as the bank later told him. He’d withdrawn the money himself, for who only knows what reason. It certainly wasn’t _their_ fault that Masashi had lost it.

Soon after Dohachiro Nezu publically humiliated Tsuna for not scoring high on a test that the man had _made sure_ Tsuna would score badly on, it came to light that Nezu had falsified his academic transcripts. The man resigned during the resultant backlash, and was replaced by a quietly demure woman with a crack-whip of a temper. She seemed content to ignore Tsuna, so long as he didn’t make a fuss. It was an improvement.)

Yes, there were other ways of helping.

_Incredibly_ amusing ways, ones that required barely anything more than a good eye, a touch of magic, and the money she received from her family each week. And best of all, she could do them without anyone knowing.

Except…Tsuna, he-

There were times when Myles would feel his eyes on her back, after one of his bullies had been humiliated or shamed or food had appeared in his locker. And he would look at her like he _knew_.

No one should have been able to connect those unfortunate mishaps with her in any way – she made damn sure of that – but sometimes Tsuna would _look_ at her, and for a brief moment his eyes would be full of flames.

And she would feel drawn to it and repelled by it in the same measure, because she knew that if she got involved in him she’d get involved in the _rest_ of that nonsense, and then her cover would be quite spectacularly blown.

So Myles dealt with it. She didn’t talk to him, she avoided him, and she never looked at him.

(If she could help it.)

* * *

The room looked like any exercise room, albeit a fair size larger than most girls of fourteen would have in their apartment. The floors were a springy bamboo, with the middle laid over by blue floor mats like in a gymnastics’ center. There was a corner with a full weight rack, an industrial sized treadmill in another, while a third was taken up with various exercise equipment and punching bags. The walls were sparse, and held no windows nor decorations beyond a life-sized ink drawing on the wall to her left.

The drawing was of a man with rather impressive eyebrows and an even more impressive smile, giving the viewer a thumbs-up. Below the drawing were the words “The Springtime of Youth!”

It wasn’t what most people would call _motivating_ , considering the man looked like he had large wooly caterpillars above his eyes. But then again, most people weren’t Myles Delano.

The aforementioned girl was in the middle of the room, sweat dripping down her forehead. Strange blocks were placed all along the rigid line of her back, and they glowed as she moved.

“Five-hundred and seventy-two,” Myles whispered, feeling the weight on her back increase just a hair as she did so. She lowered herself into another push-up, her body straight as a steel rod.

“Five hundred and seventy-three, five hundred and seventy- _four_ …”

Up and down, up and down, up and down. It was a mindless, almost soothing rhythm, one she had grown quite used to. She normally limited herself to five hundred pushups a day (along with the rest of her work-out routine of course), but since she had today off, she indulged.

As she was lowering her body into her eight-hundredth pushup, her phone rang. It chimed out a pleasant little tune, and Myles tilted her body to the side. The blocks tumbled off, losing their strange glow as she did so, and she stood.

Sweat dripped down her face as she hurried over to the shelf near the door. She plucked her towel and her phone off the thin wood panel.

“Hello?”

_“I shall be there in an hour, Myles,”_ her Uncle said.

Myles grinned. “All right, I’ll expect you then.”

_“Prepare a quiet room for my arrival.”_

Myles’ eyebrows shot through her hairline. She knew that the conversation on Flames and all that mess she had been waiting for would have required more strenuous protections than she normally used, but still. ‘A quiet room’ essentially meant _total lockdown_.

“I’ll see it done. Give me another half hour?”

_“Very well. Until then, niece.”_

“Until then, Uncle.”

_Click_.

Myles draped her towel around her neck, and looked back at the picture of Rock Lee for a long moment.

Then she gave the image a thumbs-up in return, and with a quiet (but heartfelt) “ _Yosh!_ ” she went to go take a shower.

* * *

“What do you know of Flames?”

Myles considered the question, as her Uncle sat back in the seat she had provided for him. He was as impeccably dressed as always, dark hair cropped stylishly short, his skin gleaming blue-black in the light flickering from the sigils on the walls.

“From my current life, or from my life Before?” she asked, folding her legs up underneath her.

The man beckoned to the shadows, and a cup of steaming tea was gently deposited there a scant second later. Myles grinned as the shadow did the same with her, but instead of tea, the teacup was filled with an incredibly alcoholic concoction. Mostly consisting of rum.

“Start from what you knew from then, and go from there,” her Uncle decided.

If he had been anyone else, copious amounts of editing and half-truths would have been necessary. It was not wise to let people know off-hand that she was an Old Soul, on top of being the Champion’s only child and partially-human to boot. That was information few people needed – or _deserved_ , as she had learned the hard way with Ariel – to have.

But Uncle had already known long before she’d told him, so she could speak freely.

“Dying Will Flames were a central part of a book series that I was fond of when I was younger, in my previous life. There are Flames of the Earth and Flames of the Sky, though I’m far more familiar with the latter than the former.”

“You mentioned only briefly about this book series when you first arrived here, niece. Why didn’t you say anything sooner? I would have made more time for this lesson, and made it earlier,” he said.

Myles shrugged, smiling sheepishly. “I never thought that it would become much of a problem for me. I never intended on Tsuna even taking notice of my existing, after all.”

“And that has served you _quite well_ , it seems.”

She wilted. “Do you honestly think I _wanted_ to get involved in the life of someone who’s going to be high up in the Mafia, Uncle? I know better than that.”

A pause.

“The books and your memories were a tad more informative than you’ve shared with me, weren’t they.” It wasn’t a question, and Myles wilted even more at the tone in his words.

“Y-Yes, Uncle. They are- _were_.”

He sighed. “You certainly don’t make this easy, my girl. Go on.”

“The Flames of the Sky are Storm, Rain, Sun, Lightning, Cloud, and Mist, along with the aforementioned Sky. Sky Flames usually manifest in people who are _Dons_ , or Bosses, in the Mafia hierarchy, though occasionally they do not. Sky Flames have an attribute called Harmony, which allows them to draw the other Flames to them, or…something. I’m not sure. I know Tsuna has Sky Flames, and that he gathers a Guardian with each of the other Flames as he is trained to become a Mafia Boss…that’s the most I know, really. I didn’t pay much attention to the specific Flames themselves, and the series was never really my favorite,” Myles admitted.

“And what do you know from _this_ life?”

Myles held out her hands, and green lightning danced over them. “I possess the Lightning Flame, which allows for more solidifying of my own innate strength. Mama, I think, possesses the Sky Flame...wait, why don’t I have the Sky Flame as well? Did my father have Lightning?”

Uncle smiled. “No, he had Sky Flames, and ones so strong they were only a step under your mother’s. I feel the reason you have Lightning Flames is from your past life, and that the potential carried over into fact. Also, your grandmother possessed Lightning Flames to some regard.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Myles wrinkled her nose, “and makes no sense at all.”

“Your memories carried over, along with the weight of your soul. And Flames are, after all, a subset of _Soul Magic_. What is so ridiculous about that?” Uncle asked. “What is so impossible about the impossible?”

Myles didn’t know how to respond to that at all.

Uncle twisted his white-gloved hand in a circular motion, and a book appeared in a swirl of diamond-light sparkles.

“The history of the Vongola and the Mafia, and of Flames, told from the perspective of our people and the Fae.”

Myles picked up the book, feeling the magic inherent in it. It was the sort of book that would tell her all that it felt it needed her to know, when she needed to know it, and not a moment sooner.

Uncle steepled his fingers before his face, in a very _Ikari Gendo_ -esque motion.

“Tell me niece, do you know the tale of Prometheus?”

Cracking open the book to look at the title page – _How the Eternal Flame Was Corrupted_ , oh, and wasn’t _that_ a cheerful and _obviously unbiased_ title? – Myles looked back up at the man.

“Prometheus was a Titan who stole fire from the gods in order to…in order to give it to humans…” Myles trailed off as the implications of that sank in.

_No way._

“You are correct. Like many others you have met, Prometheus existed, and it was he who gave the Flame that belonged to our kin and to gods to the humans,” Uncle said, and sat back in his chair. “And much like the man Tsuna once was, he watched his good intentions become covered in blood and murder and corruption.”

“Wait, wha- _the man Tsuna was_? Uncle, what are you saying?”

“The first Vongola Don…your friend, Tsuna, is his reincarnation,” Uncle said. “Giotto, the man who created the protections against the Fae around the area of Namimori by spilling his own blood. While the protections he left were strong, the animosity of his escape and the audacity of what he did to the Fae still lingers, even _centuries_ after he died. Do you understand now why you must step very carefully around this boy?”

Myles nodded dumbly, her mind whirling frantically.

“I will not say cut yourself off entirely from him, as I know that you will not be able to. I will, however, say that you _must_ stay as far removed from _Vongola_ as possible. Can you do that?”

“Ah…yes, Uncle.”

“Good. Do your reading, and get ready for what is to come.” He stood in a single, fluid motion that had the shadows writhing around him.

“Uncle?”

Those dark, endless eyes looked at her. “Hm?”

“Why don’t you want to know more about…ah, about that book series?”

His smile was wry. “Knowing the future is not something _I_ ever wished for, nor is it something I would wish on my worst enemies. I have enough information as it is without worrying about what may or may not come to pass.”

He crossed to her, and she stood.

“It will not be easy for you, my girl,” Uncle said.

Myles smiled up at him, just as wry as he. “Is it ever?”

There was the faintest impression of lips brushing against her forehead, and then he was gone.

Myles looked down at the book in her hands.

“I have a lot of reading to do,” she said. Tucking the book under her arm, she began taking down the protections on the room.


	4. watching a train wreck from the driver's seat

_Rusalka met the first of her cousins (the first of her friends for life) the day after she met their father._

_It was an auspicious day, in all regards. The King had spoken to one of his Guardians, and said it would be a good day, and thus, a good day it was._

_Rusalka was getting used to such things._

_She was sitting in the training room her mother had given her, meditating after her exercise, when she heard the giggling behind her. She looked to the door._

_Two…girls…stood there, watching her with blatant interest._

_“Oooooh, she sees us! Finally!”_

_“Can we come in, little la Noye?”_

_If there was one thing that Rusalka knew – if only in a subconscious way – was that trust was currency here, and rarer by far than gold or gems. She still did not know all the Rules of this place, but that one she did._

_“Who are you?” Rusalka asked, standing. The two girls laughed together, and emerged into the light._

_They were very pretty, twin bookends that walked with the same, eerie wolf’s-prowl. They were both brown-skinned, drenched in shadows in the vague approximation of clothes, and wore smiles like knives._

_Rusalka had her pride. She did not back away, even though she wanted to._

_“Papa told us that you were a total cutie pie!” the one on the left said._

_“And he was right!” the one on the right said._

_“But, of course, you know-”_

_“Papa is never wrong.”_

_Rusalka flinched back as arms drew around her shoulders. She’d been so lulled by the swing-sway of their words that she hadn’t realized how close they’d been getting._

_“Gosh, you’re so small,” the one to Rusalka’s left said, and nuzzled her hair._

_“You’re the baby of the family, you know? Papa said you have to be protected,” the one to Rusalka’s right said, squeezing her tight._

_Rusalka de la Noye did not get many hugs. So even while she knew she shouldn’t have let these two so close, she did not feel threatened by it. She felt warm._

_“W…who are you?” she asked again, her voice a little softer._

_“Berenike!” the one on the left said._

_“And I’m Arkadios,” said the one to the right._

_“It’s a pleasure to meet you, little cousin Rusalka!” they chorused in unison, and gave Rusalka a peck each on the cheek._

_And their smiles were much less like knives now._

* * *

**(four)**

The book was a revelation.

Myles went on with her life, and greedily snapped up the tiny snippets the book deigned to give her. It would have been far more efficient if it would have just given it to her in all one sitting, but the book _was_ made from fey magic.

And the day fey Magic managed to be efficient about _anything_ was the day snowballs would dance in hell.

She sighed, doodling in her notebook as the teacher droned on about something or another.

Though, the book had given her a fairly large view of the story overall, and slowly Myles was piecing together how it fit into her own life, and the manga she’d read in her previous one.

Flames were…well, that much wasn’t clear, or it wasn’t something the book had revealed to her yet. And she didn’t remember the manga or anime ever saying anything about the origin of Flames – but that could also be because she hadn’t _finished_ either series before she’d…well. Died.

Myles rubbed the bridge of her nose, feeling the beginnings of a headache banging at her temples.

Uncle had said that Flames were a part of Soul Magic, and the book _had_ alluded to Flames being a part of that…but not entirely. She shook her head, discarding that train of thought. She could puzzle out exactly _what_ Flames were at a later time.

Flames had first been brought about – or so the book had claimed – when the King (was it talking about her mama’s King?) had ‘touched the heart of one of his worshippers’, and bestowed a great power on them. He’d ignited the Flame in the Heart of the Temple – wherever and _whatever_ the fuck that was – and tasked his worshippers (Myles called them the Ancients, for lack of a better word) with protecting it, and making sure their people used it wisely, for protection and to guard the Universe.

The ‘worshippers’ were a race of beings who’d come to earth long before anyone else had made it their home, and had found the King – who was definitely her Mama’s King, by the sound of it, because the ‘companions’ he was said to have had with him _had_ to be her Mama’s kin…in any case, the worshippers were like angels, or something similar, and believed that the King had something to do with – or actually _was_ , it wasn’t clear – the being who’d created them.

After some time, the King wanted to create children (latent maternal feelings? … _huh_ ), and so had created the first humans, from old souls and old stone (or soil? Maybe it was clay…another thing the book wasn’t clear on), and asked his worshippers to guard his children, to help them come into their potential. He’d also asked them to welcome those who would be drawn by his Fire. Then he had gone to rest.

His companions (again the descriptions led Myles to believe that the book was talking about her Mama’s mother’s kin) had gone as well, to protect his temple where he slept after the Creation.

Here were the first mentions of what she’d remembered from canon, as each of the ‘Guardians’ possessed a name and powers corresponding with specific flames. Vongola and Shimon flames appeared together (Storm, Rain, Sun, Lightning, Cloud, Mist, Glacier, Desert, Forest, Mountain, and Swamp) - all except for Sky had a ‘Guardian’.

The _King_ , Myles realized, as she thought of the archaic symbols that had described him, was the ‘ _Sky’_.

So his Guardians protected their Sky as he slept and the Flame as well, and life had gone on.

But things afterwards had fallen into utmost corruption, because of course they did.

Misgivings stirred up among the Ancients, and they’d grown to hate the children of the King, hate those ‘filthy, dirty things’. It was the work of a few, blown into full, venomous hatred among the many, a madness that even the Targaryens (from that one series her friends had liked in the Before) would have been taken aback by.

(The book had been fairly kind, if rather patronizing, in describing humans – talking about them as though they were children, puttering about and generally downtrodden, unknowing, _weak_ little creatures…who were sometimes capable of immense acts of strength and good-will. It was surprising, as her kin were so rarely kind about humanity as a whole. She’d expected humans to be portrayed as the villains in this tale, but they very clearly were not.)

And things had grown even worse when the King’s companions had accepted a few humans among their ranks – humans elevated to their ascended ranks, given immortality and almost-divinity, but still _humans_ – to help them guard the King and to spread word of the King, so that when he woke he would be welcomed.

Added to that, the Fae and Spirits had come to this world through the cracks In-Between Spaces, drawn by the lure of the flame, and had been welcomed. Some had been gifted (or born) with Flames. Some – and here was mention of the Mountain People, the Dwarves that Rusalka had spent many a wonderful year with – had even learned to shape it, to hone the flame.

So, in their envy and greed and hate, the Ancients done the unthinkable.

They’d launched the most vicious and unthinking of campaigns against the Guardians, picking them off one by one, using their own powers to steal their flames, before launching an attack on the temple.

They’d stolen the flame itself, and passed it among themselves. They’d enslaved the humans and what Fae they could get their hands on, and killed as many of the Guardians as they could, and crowned themselves as Kings and Queens.

They’d split the King’s flame of ‘Sky’, claiming they did so for the ‘good and protection of the Universe’, into 7 stones that they passed along themselves.

Myles paused.

Could they be talking about the, the whatsit, the Tri-ni-set? The 7^3 that made up the universe, or something?

But no, the book had spoken of how the Ancients had _upset_ the balance, and had _left it_ upset in the wake of their coup, which sure as hell didn’t jive with the manga canon…

Myles sat back, her brain piecing it together.

Could it be? Had the Tri-ni-set _already_ been in place, or in a different manner than it was known as now? Could ‘The Heart of the Temple’, which was really only a half-assed translation, now that she thought about it, have actually been something else? Like, say, the flame of the Universe?

And the King, his Guardians, and the humans that were created – all of the symbols that had been used to describe them could very well correspond to the three pieces of the Tri-ni-set, but ones that didn’t rely on the sacrifice of the Arcobaleno. A true Balance, _not_ the artificial Tri-ni-set of canon.

 _That could very well be how the Shimon Rings are involved in all of this_ , Myles thought.

The Guardians had been noted to bear the other flames, but mostly they had possessed flames that fell under the heading of ‘Sky’. It had been the _humans_ who primarily held the flames of Earth, as they’d been born from it. And the Ancients had decried the Earth flames as ‘impure’.

Myles thought about the symbols, reviewing them in her mind, but they already told her what she’d suspected. Instead of _Rainbow_ , _Clam_ , and _Sea_ …it had been _Sky_ , _Earth_ , and _Life_.

That was uniquely fascinating.

So the Tri-ni-set was already in balance, if not by the name she knew in canon, and the Ancients upset it. What had happened next? Did they realize the error of their plans and had to find a new way to protect the Universe?

Where did Kawahira (or was he called Checkerface?) and the ancestor of that one girl from the Future Arc (who’d had the frankly uncomfortable relationship with that blond guy) come into play?

Because now that Myles thought about it, those two _had_ to be members of the Ancients. What had happened in between the Ancients’ folly and what she knew was (might be) canon?

…The book _had_ hinted at a massive civil war brewing because of what the Ancients had done-

“Sawada!”

Myles jerked, and promptly lost the train of her thought. Her head snapped around as Tsuna fell out of his seat in a flailing of limbs and books, and the class erupted into laughter.

She turned a glare on the teacher, who was smirking a little at Tsuna.

He was no Dohachiro Nezu, certainly, and actually had a modicum of teaching ability and willingness to teach his students. But he, like most teachers in this school, utterly despaired of Tsuna, and often didn’t make any attempts at hiding it.

 _Fucking trash_ , she thought, her lips curling into a snarl, and then she gently tucked away the rest of her memories concerning the book. She’d finish puzzling over it later, after she dealt with this _asshole_.

Berenike had taught her this spell, and she’d been looking forward to seeing it in action.

Myles concentrated as she traced seals on the underside of her desk. It would have been easier if she’d had ink, but she’d make do.

As the teacher turned, the thread sticking out of the toe of his shoe caught on a totally innocuous crack in the floor. He fell, in a wild splaying of limbs and paper, letting out some very un-teacherly curses as he did. One of his hands – in a vague attempt to catch himself – knocked his still steaming tea from the desk and onto his own head.

The class’s mirth abruptly turned on the still-flailing and cursing teacher. Myles propped her chin on her hand, feeling quite accomplished, listening to Rina’s giggles with no little amusement.

She caught sight of Tsuna looking at her out of the corner of her eye, that strange _knowing_ in his gaze.

Myles was too much Uncle’s niece and _Berenike’s_ cousin to not respond to that.

She winked, and chuckled as he blushed. It was like being among her cousins, and having the especial pleasure of sharing a secret joke or prank only she knew among them.

(It was like being among her family again, and that was…that was nice.)

* * *

When she needed time by herself, or when Sayuri’s yapping began to strain her nerves to the breaking point, Myles would eat lunch on the roof.

It was quiet up there, almost to the point of desolation, and few people beyond the occasional delinquent or curious student even realized that there was no lock on the door. And it was one of the few places beyond the privacy of her apartment she could indulge in…less than correct habits…without getting any raised eyebrows.

Myles leaned against the wall, casually gnawing on a chicken bone. She snapped the bone between her teeth, and casually began sucking out the marrow. It wasn’t nearly as good as the food made back home, but it was _something_.

She sighed, and looked up at the sky. She was forgetting what it was like, to wander among the Halls, to be with her family and her people. She was forgetting, until her dreams came, and so bright and vivid and full of color and life and spontaneity they were that her day-to-day existence was like ash in comparison.

 _Click_.

Footsteps.

Myles’ head jerked up as – oh, you’ve got to be _joking_ – Sawada Tsunayoshi stepped onto the roof. In one hand he held the extra bento she’d made that day for him, and had hidden in his locker after his own lunch had been stolen.

There was silence between them, before Tsuna squared his shoulders.

“C-Can I-I eat w-with y-you, D-Delano-san?” he stammered.

Myles – very carefully - set down the chicken bone she’d been sucking on.

“Why?” she asked. Her belly felt strange. _Everything_ felt strange at that moment.

He swallowed. “B-Because, um, I-I didn’t t-think y-you’d mind. And, um…y-you…you don’t…” He trailed off, blushing a bit.

Myles bit off an instinctive growl of frustration, and instead found herself looking at the handkerchief that was wrapped around the bento box. It was a light, very pretty blue, patterned with cheerfully smiling tuna fish.

And it was then, as she looked at the handkerchief she’d spent a half an hour picking out yesterday for the homemade lunchbox of a boy she shouldn’t have even been interacting with in the first place, that Myles realized she was completely and utterly _fucked_.

Instead of facepalming, as she so very _desperately_ wanted to do, Myles simply nodded.

Tsuna sat to her left, nibbling quietly on the onigiri Myles had made, while Myles finished her chicken, the both of them not talking to one another.

She gave only one mournful glance at the bones – she _really_ liked getting to crunch them, but with the present company that sure as hell wasn’t an option – before turning to Tsuna.

He’d barely eaten anything, and lunch was almost over.

“Do you not like your food?” Myles asked, just barely managing to keep the hurt from her voice. She wasn’t a stellar cook by any means, and the bento she made obviously couldn’t hold a candle against Sawada Nana’s, but her Aunt Andi’s recipe book hadn’t steered her wrong yet.

She _could_ make a halfway decent onigiri without poisoning anyone.

“N-No! I like it!” Tsuna protested. “I-I just…it’s hard t-to…it’s h-hard for m-me to eat a lot.”

Myles blinked.

_What?_

…Did Tsuna have an _eating disorder_?

“Explain that,” Myles said.

Tsuna flinched. “U-Um, p-people steal m-my f-food. Th-They say _Dame-Tsuna_ d-doesn’t deserve t-to eat g-good things. I-I only eat a-at home n-now.”

Myles closed her eyes, and felt something _bulge_ under her veneer of control. Something _angry_.

She carefully touched a hand to the pendant under her shirt, and promised herself she’d spend an extra hour talking with Artemisios tonight. Maybe even Mary would indulge her with a conversation, if the Sto Helit wasn’t busy with her training.

“How long.”

“H-How l-long wh-what?”

“How long has this… _outrage_ …been happening to you?” Myles asked. She had thought she had kept her face and voice placid, but from the way Tsuna shrank away from her, she hadn’t exactly been all too successful.

“S-Since I w-was six,” Tsuna said, and shrank even deeper at whatever look passed over Myles’ face at _that_.

Tsuna was thirteen now. This had been happening for _seven years_.

 _Seven years_ , he’d been horrifically bullied and essentially starved by his ‘peers’.

And no one had done a single goddamn thing to stop it.

Myles breathed in as old, old memories flickered like mayflies – _“You really think some dumb fat dyke needs to eat so much? Choke on it, piggy!”_ – and breathed out steadily. She thought of Rock Lee’s smile, and holding back the enraged _something_ in her chest got marginally easier.

 _Lee-senpai would not be happy if I murdered everyone in Namimori_ , she told herself. _Think of Lee-senpai. Think of Lee-senpai and Mama. Do not kill every single piece of vermin in this school. Do not._

She looked at Tsuna again, feeling a terrible sort of sadness supplant the rage in her chest.

Tsuna’s innate shyness, his _kindness_ (which so many would think was weakness) – when adding to that the sealing of his Flames, the insecurity that all children had, and the _constant_ and _unchecked_ abuse…

He’d had everything stacked against him since the very start – and that wasn’t even getting into whatever his family situation might be. At the very least his father was missing, and if Sawada Nana was anything like she was in canon, Tsuna wasn’t likely to have any support from her.

No _wonder_ he hated himself, and thought himself so worthless. No one else probably bothered to tell him otherwise. The way he said it, “Dame-Tsuna”, without malice.

 _I am worthless_.

Just a fact of life. Accepted in his heart.

 _He’s even worse than I was_ , Myles realized. At least the woman Myles had once been had never quite lost the sting of hurt that accompanied the whispers and commentary on how she was wasting her life.

And _gods_ , but that was an unpleasant thought. Myles set aside her lunchbox.

They should be heading back to class. Myles should be going back to sit in her seat. She would talk with Akemi about that new J-pop idol. Miwa wanted her to come over to her house with Akemi, to listen to the idol’s brand new CD. Sayuri wanted Myles to go shopping with her and Rina.

Myles should be going back. Should be _hiding_. She knew, better than anyone, what sort of _insanity_ this boy sitting beside her would bring into her life.

But then she was reaching out, before she quite realized it. Myles wrapped her arms around Tsuna’s bony (too-thin) shoulders, and pulled him into her lap.

He made a panicked squeak, even as Myles rested her chin on his head.

“ _Hiiiiiiiiie-!_ D-D-D-Delano-san?! W-W- _What are you d_ -”

“I’m sorry.”

The boy stilled. And Myles sighed, turning her head so her cheek rested on his hair.

“Tsuna, I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have had to go through all of that, and I just stood aside and _let it happen_ because I-”

_Because I didn’t want to deal with the trouble._

Stand aside, let someone else handle it. Someone else will help. Someone else. _Not me._

(It was incredibly disconcerting, to find so much of _that life_ still clung to her now)

She could have made a hundred different excuses - she was in hiding from the Court, she had to keep her head down – but in this city she was even safer than she was in the Halls. Unless she lost control of her form entirely, it was near impossible anyone could find her here.

Instead, she’d curled up behind that excuse, not wanting the _hassle_.

Myles sat there, with Tsuna firmly – _protectively_ – ensconced in her arms, while she grumbled about blind idiots and bystanders and her own foolish personality.

Surprisingly enough, for someone who rarely – if ever – spoke to girls, Tsuna seemed perfectly content in her lap.

Much later, as the school day came to an end, they separated and stood. Myles looked down into Tsuna’s face, seeing that dazed, bewildered, disbelieving sense of wonder there, and sighed.

 _If I’m going to shoot myself in the foot, I might as well do it properly_ , she thought, and bit the figurative bullet.

“Tsuna.”

“Y-Yes?”

“Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I eat lunch here. You are welcome to join me, and to bring any work you are having difficulty with. I will help you.”

Tsuna _stared_ at her, until Myles felt that peculiar itch along her shoulder blades that signified embarrassment.

With all the bullheaded tenacity her Mama had ever passed on to her, she determinedly ignored it.

“And, Tsuna. Call me Myles…if you would like.”

Tsuna’s staring was getting uncomfortable. Myles ignored the flush crawling under her collar, and nodded decisively.

“If it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t insist on it,” she said. “But the offer is open.”

Myles opened the door, and left Tsuna standing there. She walked down the stairs, out of the school, out the door, and past whatever students still lingered.

Her ears didn’t stop burning until she was home.


	5. the dominoes begin to fall

_“Why should I train you?” her mother asked._

_She was tall and imposing, this new mother of hers. Rusalka called her Mother, not Mama._

_(It was a compromise they both deemed acceptable. And Rusalka thought that some form of familial address would be right and respectful to use. After all, the woman_ had _pushed Rusalka out of her…_

_…best not to think of that)_

_Rusalka sat on the floor in front of her new mother, and thought hard on the question. With anyone else beyond her Uncle, she would have dismissed it, or perhaps said “Because I_ asked _.”_

_But with this woman, she thought long and hard and made no snide comment._

_“I wasn’t strong, before,” Rusalka said, after a time had passed. Her mother was one of three beings who knew of what she was and why she was, so it was safe to say these words. “I wasn’t strong before, and I lost my chance to ever be so when I…moved on.”_

_“So you want to be strong now?” There was no judgement in that quiet, sonorous voice._

_“I didn’t get to do many things, before,” Rusalka replied. Something churned in her chest, bitter and wild and ultimately unnameable. “I would like to do them now. If that’s possible.”_

_A shift. Her mother knelt before her, and her blazing gold eyes – slit like a cat’s – looked at Rusalka for a long, long while._

_Then she nodded._

_“We shall see what we will make of you,” her mother said._

_And Rusalka took the hand that was offered._

* * *

**(five)**

Tsuna isn’t entirely sure what’s going on, which is very stark departure from his day-to-day life. As painful and humiliating his life has been up to this point, at the very least it was somewhat _consistent_.

Now it isn’t, and he still can’t understand it.

_-…Myles had smiled, all sharp-teeth and bitter resolve, and the bullies had backed away from her and him both._

_“Very good,” she’d whispered, soft and sweet and poisonous. “Let’s go, Tsuna.”_

_He’d followed her into the school, shocked and still trembling as people stared at them both_

_“They will never do that to you again,” she said, and her voice was very cold. “If anyone does, Tsuna, let me know, will you? I’ll make sure they will learn the error of their ways.”_

_Tsuna blinks and nods frantically when her eyes fall on him. It’s such a strange feeling in his heart._

_He wonders if this is what it is like to have friends…-_

“Tsuna.” His name is a gentle rebuke, and he jolts a bit, before peering back at the equation that Myles had asked him to focus on.

“U-um, six?” he asks, and looks back up at his unofficial tutor.

Her smile is approving, and makes something warm curl up in his chest.

“Yes, very good. Now, the next problem, if you would,” she says, and when she tilts her head to the right the sunlight from the wide-open window dances across her face, makes something about her face look startling and strangely familiar.

It has been close to a month since he sat with Myles during that quiet lunch-period, after he’d finally grown the nerve to face the strange girl who’d been waging a private (and unbelievable) war on his behalf.

(Though he still didn’t have the courage to ask her _how_ or even _why_.)

After a week of Tsuna bringing his work to the roof, Myles had deemed it not enough, and asked him to join her during the weekends at her home, for specialized tutoring. She hadn’t been at all surprised or even put out by his…his _Dame_ -ness and lack of talent or smarts or anything worthwhile, just vaguely contemplative and solidly determined.

“ _Rome wasn’t built in a day, my tuna-fish_ ,” she had told him absently, brushing a kiss across his forehead even as he had blushed stoplight-red at the endearment. _“And it takes a great deal of effort to find something beautiful when the world itself is against you.”_

Myles is utterly unabashed in her affection, a far cry from the cold, almost aloof girl who’d come to Namimori over a year ago. Tsuna’s grown used to her pressing kisses against the top of his head, her arm curling around his shoulders, and the way she gives him smile after smile without thought.

(But most of all, Tsuna prefers her hugs. They’re warm and tight and make him feel safe.)

“Want to take a quick break, Tsuna?” Myles asks, and Tsuna jolts out of his contemplation of her.

“A-Ah, o-okay,” he says. She grins at him. He blushes and fidgets a bit, unable to help it.

“I’ll go get some snacks. Be right back.” And she’s up and striding out the door and into the kitchen.

He takes the time to look around the room again, as he’s done so many times before.

It’s sparsely decorated, but still expansive enough for a much larger family. The entire house - that Myles lives in by herself - is much in the same way. A kitchen, three bedrooms, _four_ bathrooms, a study, a basement (that Tsuna was not allowed to enter), a library stuffed full of books, and several other rooms that Tsuna could tell weren’t in use.

Myles had admitted shyly to him that her Uncle spoiled her, and had wanted to make sure that his niece was suited out in comfort while living in Japan. He hadn’t wanted her to get homesick.

It had been then that Tsuna had seen something he’d only spotted glimpses of before.

Her eyes had _changed_ , become old and amused and so very, very lonely, and it had been instinct that had led him to taking her hand. He’d squeezed it, hoping everything he couldn’t tell her could get through to whatever sad and lonely place his…his f-friend had gone.

She’d looked at him then with such honest, open _adoration_ (as she does constantly these days), not a single thing hidden behind that strange blankness she’d worn her first year at Namimori.

Tsuna looks around the room again, hearing the puttering and cheerful humming coming from the kitchen that connects to the living room. The walls are a dark green and the wood that edges them is dark brown, and it gives the impression of old and strong and weathered trees. The furniture is white, just as weathered as the wood on the walls.

Perhaps in any other house, it may have seemed dark and cramped, without light or warmth or decoration to alleviate the starkness of the colors – but the windows are always thrown wide open, faint music plays constantly from some unseen source, and…

Tsuna isn’t sure, but sometimes…sometimes he sees _things_ , on the walls. Flashes of light, quicksilver signs out of the corner of his eye, sigils that appear in a blinding spear of sunlight but are gone in the span of a second.

He doesn’t ask about them. He’s probably just seeing things.

“Tsuna?”

He blinks, jerks, and flails a bit as Myles sits down in front of him across the table. Myles laughs, bright and loud and fierce, and waits until he’s sitting still again before she slides the plate of onigiri over and hands him his tea.

_How the hell does she move so quietly?_ Tsuna wonders, and not for the first time.

“So, Tsuna.” Myles props her chin on her hands and grins at him, like they’re sharing a secret, her face eerily familiar in ways he couldn’t understand. “Did you read the newest chapter of _One Punch Man_?”

It’s one of the (surprisingly many) things they share outside of tutoring. Tsuna can’t believe that his girly-girly tutor – who doesn’t seem half so girly in pants and with her hair wild around her face, now that he thinks about it – would be so into comics, but she enjoys them as much as he does.

(She’d actually started _crying_ when he’d shown her the manga, for some odd reason…)

Tsuna listens to her babble on about Saitama with bright eyes and a flurry of hand gestures, and he likes that only he gets to know her like this, when she’s all cool and hard and _blank_ at school.

Of course, just because he likes it doesn’t mean he _understands_ it.

Maybe he never will – why she goes so far for _him_ , of all people. Why she scares off his bullies and why she apologized to him for not doing anything sooner and why she likes having him over and talking to him and why she makes food for him and worries about his health.

Tsuna doesn’t question it, though.

Even if this ends one day and she gets bored of him, he still has it _now_.

And he wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

* * *

It was strange and vaguely surreal, to have people all but flatten themselves against the wall when she walked, then to have their eyes slide over her when she passed. It made Myles feel incredibly amused.

She munched on a chicken bone. Tsuna was home sick – _which reminded her, she’d have to collect his homework from math so she could take it to him_ – so she could indulge in a bit of absolute quiet.

The amulet was still very much working, but that aura of utter menace that she was careful to exude when around Tsuna lingered still, even after the memories of _her_ were dulled by the magic.

Ah, well. It worked, was the most important thing. People stayed away from Tsuna, and they didn’t bother her in the slightest.

“Having fun?”

…Well, _almost_ nobody bothered her. Myles raised an eyebrow at Akemi as the girl stepped onto the roof, a sway to her hips and her teeth just a bit too sharp.

A rather unexpected part of becoming Tsuna’s protector was the revelation of one of her distant kinsmen, hiding among the humans. Akemi was in truth one of the _Lamiae_ , those women with the bodies of snakes and the beauty of succubi.

_Lamiae_ were relatives of Myles’ grandmother, and beholden to their blood.

After all, Akemi had said, it had been Myles’ grandmother who had saved them, when the Greedy Ones had come to make the Lamia their servants and slaves. All Lamia who still lived owed their survival and continued freedom to Myles’ grandmother.

While Myles knew full and well that Lamia weren’t the child-eaters and monstrous seductresses of human myth – rather protectors of children and women – learning the rest of it from the girl had been fascinating.

Akemi was a storyteller, one who would spend time among humans and learn their ways, before either returning back to her people or taking a place in the Halls of Myles’ own home, as was her right. She’d kept quiet when Myles had first arrived in Namimori, waiting for her to make the first move, not sure what exactly Myles was, just that she was about as human as Akemi.

It was only when Myles had started really showing her true colors that Akemi had approached her, and the dynamics between the two of them…well. They’d changed, to say the least.

The other girl snuggled into Myles’ side, shameless and insistent. Myles felt the press of glamoured scales against her leg, and relaxed in a way she permitted herself to do nowhere else beyond the confines of her apartment.

“Really, I wish you would come down and join me for lunch, and not hide up here all day,” Akemi complained.

There was an almost wanton – Myles doesn’t want to call it servitude, because the day a Lamia was _servile_ was the world would end – relief, yes, that was the word. There was wanton _relief_ in Akemi’s actions, no fear of being judged for her ‘strangeness’.

The single year Myles had spent in Namimori so far had taxed her to the breaking point, and yet Akemi had spent far longer hiding what she was. Small wonder she acted so differently now, around the one person in all of Namimori who wouldn’t balk at her behavior.

In fact, it was something of a comfort. As Akemi curled a leg over hers and tucked herself in like Myles was some gigantic teddy bear, Myles gloried in the touch.

It had, after all, been too damn long since she’d had the freedom of the give-and-take of touch, of someone who wouldn’t give her weird looks if she needed a hug. Even Tsuna – though in these past weeks he _had_ been getting better – still flinched a little when she touched him.

It made her incandescently furious at the people who had taught him to expect pain when someone touched him or to not expect touch at all, but he was getting better. He accepted her hugs and kisses after that first moment of shock.

Even small steps were still _progress_.

“I don’t like being down there, among them all,” Myles drawled, crunching a bone between her teeth.

Akemi made excited grabby hands at the remaining chicken wing and Myles rolled her eyes, before handing it over. The Lamia made quick work of it, crunching the bone just as enthusiastically as Myles would have.

“How’s Sawada doing?”

Myles raised an eyebrow.

Akemi scoffed. “You _know_ I don’t mean the little Sky any harm, and that I was only acting as you did, under orders _much the same as yours_ …in any case, have you found a way to break his flames free? It does me ill, to see them locked away so cruelly.”

Myles leaned back against the rough stone of the wall behind her, and felt her mouth twist down into an annoyed snarl. “No, I have not.”

It had been soon after Myles had started having Tsuna over, that she taken a closer look at his flames, and been startled by what she’d found. Tsuna’s _soul_ – as viewed through a special stone she had been given to see into the hearts of others - was grey and dulled, with a seal like black ichor strangling his internal Flames into almost nothingness.

She’d never even _heard_ of something like that happening. Her Uncle had balked like a rearing horse when she’d told him, horrified beyond words, and nothing he’d managed to ferret out among their people had ever seen something of the sort happen.

There were precedents among human-kind, of course, but normally that was for extreme and/or volatile mixtures of flames in a child’s body, where leaving the contrasting flames out would inflict irreversible physical or mental damage on the child or on others around them.

Sealing away a part of a child’s flames was like sealing away _part of their soul_. It was a crime beyond measure, and not even the _Exiled_ would dare do such a thing, without reason.

Her Uncle had promised to try and send her a solution via a magic pendant, but it was a long shot. The best case scenario, he had said, was to spend more time with the boy. Her own flames would begin prying away the seal.

It would take years of hard effort, but damned if she was just going to let Reborn show up and pump bullets into Tsuna’s frail little body, even if it _was_ to break the damned seal Nono and that fucking waste of space who called himself Tsuna’s father had put on her friend.

Myles breathed slowly, calming herself.

It would be some time before Sawada Iemitsu ever showed his face in Namimori, but that only gave her more time to plan exactly how he would pay for his failures and neglect of Tsuna. And he would pay dearly.

“My, that’s a scary face,” Akemi said, and when Myles looked down at her, the Lamia grinned and poked at the line furrowed between Myles’ eyebrows.

Myles rolled her eyes and flicked her on the nose. “Brat.”

Akemi just giggled and rested her head on Myles’ shoulder, before apparently dropping into sleep. Myles hummed in wry amusement.

They would have to go back down soon, and Akemi would have to settle the weight of her façade on her shoulders once more. So Myles couldn’t begrudge her little cousin this moment of affection, with both of them so far from home.

Myles looked up, and closed her eyes as well. The sun felt warm on her face.

* * *

There was something about the Sawada household that struck Myles as wrong.

Nothing blatant, certainly. But it was still _there_ , and the hair on the back of her neck prickled. Something in her most primitive hindbrain snarled and prowled, whispering half-understood words of warning.

_I will most certainly have to insist that the rest of our study sessions be spent at my apartment_ , Myles thought, uncomfortably on edge.

But Tsuna had asked her over, trembling a little and looking so hopeful that she could have denied him nothing. So here she was, her bag slung over her shoulder and two cake boxes under her arm, following Sawada Nana into the kitchen, making small talk.

“You’ve been helping my Tsu-kun so much, Delano-san!” Sawada Nana’s voice was cheerful and as oblivious as the rest of her, with a pearly while smile to match. “He’s no longer quite as useless as he was.”

Myles halted, blinked, and _stared_ at the woman as those words filtered in. It took a great deal of control to hold back the blank shock that resulted from that, because Myles almost couldn’t believe what she’d heard.

She could feel Tsuna stopping in the hall, just in front of the door, just in time to have caught the words.

But there was no shock on his face when he peeked around the corner and didn’t look at her. He just fidgeted a little and tried to keep a wobbly smile on his lips.

After all, he’d probably heard something similar many times before.

Myles handed over one of the cake boxes, and smiled in the same way she smiled at the boys who had insisted that Tsuna’s better grades had come from cheating. It wasn’t a nice smile.

“No, Tsuna was _never_ useless,” she said, mild as milk even in the midst of her astonished fury at this woman’s _audacity_. “But I suppose it just took someone with better eyes to see it. Tsuna, let’s go.”

She turned and-

Tsuna was looking at her now, and that same look was in his eyes again. That aching disbelief.

Even as her entire body roared and raged and all but fucking _howled_ for vengeance, even as that primitive hindbrain circled warily around the slow, steady, unseen poison that was Sawada Nana and her oblivious cruelty, Myles set her hand on Tsuna’s shoulder, and steered him towards the stairs.

So what she feared had been true. Tsuna had had nothing, before she’d come along.

A father who cared more for his blood-soaked criminal Famiglia than his son and wife, a mother who’d written him off with casual nonchalance, classmates who mocked and humiliated him, teachers who did the same, no one in the entire fucking world besides _her_ who bothered to show they fucking _cared_ -

Her voice was gentle as she guided him through equations and his English homework. Her hands were gentle but firm as she corrected his work. She was careful to remain in that gentle state of mind taught to her by her Mama, as she did when she knew her anger was a hair-snap away from the boiling point.

It would take far longer than just the few months she’d spent with Tsuna, to break through the hard shell layered on him by all those who called him _Dame_ and, in turn, made him believe that was _true_.

Ah, well. It would probably take her years, but she had spent years honing her body into the streamlined force of nature it was today. Myles Delano was no stranger to hard, unforgiving work.

And the reward for this would be truly sweet.

* * *

Myles had called in sick for two days, while she renewed the ritual and the spells that kept her apartment safe.

Tsuna would be alone during that time, but Akemi had promised to do some subtle nudging if anyone tried something stupid. Myles knew the Lamia would take especial and utterly vindictive pleasure in protecting Tsuna, now that she had Myles’ request to do so.

Days like those, she _really_ liked being her Mama’s daughter.

So useful.

Myles walked down the street towards the corner she normally met Tsuna at, rubbing her chest and wondering if she had forgotten something. It niggled at the back of her mind, like an irritating itch she could scratch-

_BANG_.

She felt the sound in her bones.

The sharp crack of the gunshot reverberated through her like a gong struck against her ear, and she was running, her feet pounding the pavement. She took the corner at a full out sprint, one hand snagging out against the brick wall to change her direction, and-

_No, no, no, no, no-_

There was a baby in a suit, who blazed like the sun. There was the tang of blood on the air. There was the glint of light on the barrel of a gun.

And there was Tsuna, falling. With a hole in his head.

_NO!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I blame a certain fedora'd baby hitman for making this chapter feel disjointed. 
> 
> I _had_ planned on having him make his debut in the next chapter, but then he showed up and wouldn't leave, and finally I just gave it up.


	6. calm, moments before the storm

_He was very tall, the King was._

_He towered into the spires of the throne room, but Rusalka could see all of his face from her position on his shoulder. His beard gleamed in the low light, and he sparkled._

_Well, perhaps not_ sparkled _, exactly._

_There wasn’t really a word Rusalka knew to describe the way the man shone, and how it drew her in, how it comforted her._

_“So how goes it, my granddaughter?” he asked, and his voice was very gentle. He was always very gentle with her._

_Rusalka didn’t know what he wanted to know first, but knew that he would want to know it all. It was rare that he received guests who were easy with him, and were not overwhelmed with worship. Even his own people were often overly reverential of him._

_She was respectful, of course, but not too much. There was no need to be, not here._

_“I was visited by the Delphine Oracle,” she commented._

_“Ah,” the King replied, unsurprised._

_“She told me that I have much chaos in my future. Much strife.”_

_He said nothing. And she wasn’t surprised that he knew of that, too._

_“I don’t know if I’m ready. If I’ll ever be ready.”_

_“No one who faces such things is ever truly so,” the King said. “But we face them, whether or not we are.” His voice was sad and lonely and endless._

_Rusalka leaned to the side, cuddling against the side of his face, and that startled a small chuckle out of him._

_“But I think you will do far better than I did, my dear girl.”_

_Rusalka simply curled closer to him in reply._

* * *

**(six)**

It was only the fact that Myles was too shocked to move that saved Reborn’s life.

It kept her still, kept her rooted to the ground long enough for Tsuna to reawaken with a flame replacing the bullet wound that had killed him and brought him back to life in equal turn.

Tsuna was almost completely nude but for his polka-dot print boxers and the flame that burned like a miniaturized bonfire on his forehead, and a face contorted with unnatural, coerced determination.

With a roar that barely penetrated the fog surrounding her, Tsuna took off in the opposite direction, bellowing something about Kyoko-chan and telling her that “she deserved more than pretending that all she was, was just a pretty idiot!”

Myles simply _stared_.

There was a faint roaring in her ears, and her heart was beating too fast. That wasn’t a good sign.

She wanted nothing more in the world to go and find Tsuna and hold him in arms and never let him go, but-

If she remembered correctly, then doing so would put her in close contact with Reborn, and that was _not_ a good idea right now.

There was something in her chest, roaring and angry and _hungry_ for blood, and she didn’t feel quite like testing the diminutive hitman so soon.

She would find Tsuna tomorrow.

Myles turned right back around. There would be no school for her today. Not as angry as she was.

* * *

Reborn has been fed faulty intelligence before, but it’s never quite annoyed him this much.

It’s not _entirely_ wrong, is the thing that most annoys him.

Sawada Tsunayoshi _is_ a poor student, horrendous at sports, and with an inferiority complex so wide it makes Reborn want to dropkick him into a wall, but-

He isn’t the worst student in his class. He is still near the bottom, but slowly rising, his grades improving at a steady pace. Room for improvement, certainly, but nothing like the hopeless idiot Reborn had been expecting. He has a few acquaintances, but mostly people avoided him like the plague. Like they were _scared_ of him.

And twice – _twice!_ – the boy had come close to manifesting something of his Flame even _before_ Reborn had used Dying Will Bullet, irritation and outright annoyance curling through his sarcastic words and an orange glint in the boy’s brown eyes.

It has been a very long time since anyone has so slyly backtalked to Reborn (to his _face_ , even!), and Reborn’s not pleased by it.

(Well, he’s fine with it, actually, because it makes his job easier in the long run, but it’s also a _mystery_ , and mysteries are _always_ pains in the ass to deal with.)

There’s only a cracking veneer over the supposedly weak and useless boy he’d been told would be his charge. And Reborn would _very much_ like to like to know why he was not informed of it beforehand.

It’s an amusing balm to his annoyed nerves as he watches Tsunayoshi flail as he’s surrounded by his classmates. Reborn knows they attend on taking the kid to meet that one kendo student ( _weak, barely passable, maybe a good foot soldier in the future…at least_ that _seemed accurate_ ), Mochida Kensuke.

Tsunayoshi will undoubtedly run away from the confrontation – if he’s misjudged even _that_ then all of CEDEF will know his displeasure shortly after – and Reborn will get the chance to use the Bullet on him again.

He can’t deny the fact that he’s looking forward to the resulting chaos. He has so few joys left in life-

There’s a murmur, and the crowd parts like a school of fish around a hunting shark. It isn’t Hibari Kyōya, or one of the boy’s Disciplinary Committee ( _all of whom had considerable potential, but only Hibari and his second would be truly useful to the Vongola...again, if his information on that was not as_ useless _as the intel on Tsunayoshi_ ) like Reborn would expect.

It’s a girl. Barely fourteen years old, a plain-faced, chubby-cheeked girl wearing her hair long and neat in a braid down her back. Her uniform is prim and tidy.

Something that feels eerily like Mist flames tug at him in subtle, probing ways. His mind tells him to focus on the plainness of her face, the dullness of her eyes, the careful femininity of her attire and appearance. It’s a gentler suggestion than Mist flames have ever given him, and he almost, almost falls for it.

Then the girl grabs the hand of the kendo student who’d been about to grab Tsunayoshi, and very quietly, says “I think not.”

Her words crack across the suddenly silent classroom.

“Ehhhh! But he has to pay for the wrong he said to Sasagawa-san!” a boy ( _unimportant, parents were nonentities…unless CEDEF messed up on something else_ yet again) protested, only to make a strangled sound in his throat when the girl turned the full force of her attention on him.

“Oh? Does an apology not count? Has Sasagawa-san asked you to do this all in her name? Or have you all just gotten it into your heads that what she thinks doesn’t matter, and that you all know better than her?” The words are delivered in a polite, reasonable tone.

The crowd still backs away from her.

Reborn blinks then, and _sees_ better, the image through his binoculars suddenly less fogged and drifting. The subtle tugging is there, but he can ignore it if he focuses.

The girl’s muscles are hard, pressing tight against the fabric of her shirt. Her hands are heavily callused from training. She moves like a born and bred fighter, and carries herself like she’s someone important. Snake-quick, and diamond-hard. Her makeup is a little too artfully applied, her uniform a little _too_ neat.

And, worst of all, Reborn does not know her name. He thinks through the files he memorized, and comes up with a blank. There had been no mention at all of her in all the information he’d been given and that-

That is _unacceptable_.

He watches as the girl puts herself – _subtly_ , as subtle as the foreign whisper in his head had been – in between Tsuna and the crowd.

“Sasagawa-san, would an apology do in place of this sideshow?” the girl asks, calm and direct, and Sasagawa Kyoko ( _Tsunayoshi’s crush, a Sun Flame unless Reborn had sensed wrong_ ) blushed and nodded, all at once.

“But Mochida-senpai said-!”

“Does it _look_ like I care what he thinks?” the girl asks, sardonic. “He may posture and bluster as he likes, but it matters not at all. The offense was dealt to _Sasagawa Kyoko-san_ , and it is her prerogative to decide how that offense will best be dealt with. Mochida Kensuke does not even enter the equation.”

“But Mochida-senpai is Kyoko-chan’s boyfriend! He deserves to defend her honor from some pervert stalker who called her an idiot!”

The girl snorts. “Sawada Tsunayoshi is many things, but a perverted stalker is not one of them. It’s likely a mere accident this even happened in the first place, or miscommunication. Also, uh…your boyfriend?” She raised a brow at Sasagawa.

Sasagawa blushes red under the attention, but says firmly, “No, _no_ , he’s not. We’re just in the same leadership club together. He’s _not_ my boyfriend, no matter what he says. And Tsuna-kun didn’t call me an idiot. I-I just misheard him, is all.”

“As I thought. Tsuna, apologize to Sasagawa-san, and let us get on with our day.”

Tsunayoshi inches out from behind the unknown girl’s back, and does so. It would be a sickeningly cute display, all that blushing, stammering, and general teenage nonsense, if Reborn didn’t feel quite like shooting half the people in a three kilometer range.

Reborn _knows_ that this girl has something to do with Tsunayoshi’s change.

And the fact that Reborn knows next to nothing about her beyond what he’s seen of her just now pisses him off.

He had planned on getting an amusing show, and now he has to deal with an unknown right at the heart of the Vongola heir’s life.

Heads would _roll_ for this.

* * *

“Tsuna, what the _fuck_.”

“U-Um, I’m sorry?”

Myles kept Tsuna firmly seated between her legs, locked in the middle of her arms, his back to her chest and her chin resting on his hair.

Strangely enough, the closeness did wonders towards calming the snarly, still-enraged thing that had burst back into barely controlled life once she’d felt eyes watching her.

Undoubtedly Reborn was wondering just who the hell she was. It wasn’t doing her nerves any good, having that attention on her, though luckily it had slacked off some by lunch.

Having Tsuna in her arms, alive and very much _not-dead_ , helped a lot.

“I saw that little fedora’d freak shoot you, and I nearly had a heart attack,” Myles said gruffly. “Jesus fucking _Christ_ , Tsuna.” She’d nearly destroyed the training room after she’d gotten home.

“O-Oh…”

“Yeah, _oh_. What the _hell_ was that about?”

“He’s crazy,” Tsuna said, and snuggled back against her chest without thought.

(Myles was proud of her restraint, as she did _not_ preen at the returned affection.)

“The, uh, midget? Little person? Tsuna, he, it, _whoever_ the fuck it was shot you. _You died_. And then came back. I would like actual, coherent answers,” Myles bit out.

“He says his name’s Reborn,” Tsuna said quietly. “And that he’s from the Mafia. He wants me to be a Mafia Boss.”

Myles couldn’t help the snort that escaped her at that. It had been funny in the manga, to look at the fluffy-haired, vaguely small-woodland-creature-esque Tsuna and think that people wanted him to be – of all things - a Mafia Don. True comedy, right there.

Now, holding him in her arms, all fragile and silk and huge heart and _depending on her_ , it was ten times more hilarious.

(Ten times more _infuriating_ , truth be told. Nono and that fucking Iemitsu had taken everything from Tsuna, including part of his own damned _soul_. Now they were taking away any chance of his having a normal life. Just one more thing to strip away from Tsuna, to make him into their perfect _fucking_ pawn.)

In that moment, Myles hated the Mafia, and she hated Vongola most of all. A farce, was all it was. A blood-stained farce that wanted to pull in someone she cared for dearly, to make a _monster_ out of a child because they didn’t have anyone else.

And they didn’t care about what would happen to him because of it.

…Well, that just wouldn’t do.

If she’d had more time – if she’d started when she’d first arrived, gods all damn it – then she could have put more a crimp in the plans of the High-And-Mighty Vongola. But what was done was done.

Myles could work with what she had, even if she had to do it right under Reborn’s nose.

 _Revenge_ , she thought, _for touching what was **hers**_.

“Do you think he’s right?” Myles looked down at Tsuna.

His knuckles were white where he clutched at her arms, and she saw the stress as clear as day. The fear, too. There were bags under his eyes. There was a faint, constant tremor in his hands.

The knowledge really hit her then, really sank into her brain.

Tsuna had died and come back to life. He was a _fourteen-year-old boy_ , and he was so thoroughly traumatized that it was a miracle he hadn’t shaken to pieces by now.

And she was his only protection, the only thing that would remain steady and stable for him to cling to in the chaos his life would become.

“I have some friends and family who’ll be able to help us,” Myles said quietly. “I won’t let him push you around for whatever reason he’s here, Mafia or no.”

Myles would need to make some calls. Tsuna would need an army to stand against the pressure the Vongola – and the Mafia itself - could bring to bear against him.

She didn’t know whether or not she could prevent him from becoming the Vongola Decimo. But she _could_ give him the tools to bring the Vongola back to the glory it had been, long ago.

And her family would be _more_ than pleased to help.

* * *

Reborn – snug in one of his cubbyholes, where he will be able to properly watch Tsunayoshi and the girl – looks over the information he’d been sent by a thoroughly cowed CEDEF.

(Iemitsu hadn’t been in at the time, which was a shame, but Reborn knows it will be far more therapeutic to have the idiot available for a _physical_ beating, not just a verbal one.)

_Myles Andrea Delano_

_Age: 14_

_DOB: December 30, 2000_

_Place of Birth: Marchfield, Indiana (America). Born at St. Nicholas’s Hospital for Children._

_Time of Birth: 5:30 A.M._

_Mother: Mary Delano_

  * _Schoolteacher, did a stint in the sex industry as a teenager. (Further investigation revealed a stint in the army and in Black Ops)…_



_Father: Not written on birth certificate, but further investigation revealed him to be a trucker named Garrett Worth. Deceased._

_Grandfather: Robert Delano_

  * _Upper class, white collar office worker, no connections to Mafia or underworld. Disowned daughter for running away, but they were reconciled after the birth of Myles. Pays for most of Myles’ material items. We’ve found several emails from Myles to him in his computer, though no mention of Mary…_



_Grandmother: Andrea Delano nee Reed_

  * _Upper class, does charity work. A maternal cousin has ties to the Passeggio Famiglia, though she has little interaction with them. Very concerned with material possessions, and cares little for her family…_



_Uncle: Edward Delano_

  * _Upper class, married to Renee Delano nee Smythe. Two children. Having an affair with his secretary. Wife has a fondness for fine things (mostly jewelry) and is deeply in debt…_



Reborn smiles unpleasantly as he incinerates the folder. He has memorized all of the information (and more) that is enclosed in the packet long before.

At the very least, now he knows that no one (no plant or spy) with connection to any rival Family is near the Vongola’s heir.

But that still leaves the thought that a partial unknown who has military training is near Tsunayoshi, and that…well, that complicates his plans unnecessarily.

Sure, he knows perhaps everything about Myles Delano there is to know (he had all her information at hand, or in his head – Internet records, school records, everything she’d ever owned or been gifted, everywhere she’d ever been), but he knows very little about her in the now.

CEDEF had been unable to get information from the computer she has now, and what informants they have here had been frustrated in their attempts to get knowledge of her day-to-day life, beyond a cursory overlook of her grades (all acceptable, with notes that she isn’t performing her best), and knowledge that she spent a great deal of time with Tsuna in the privacy of her home.

She is protective of Tsuna, that much is clear. Cold and intelligent, with a biting wit she turns on others at will. Her mother has obviously trained her well, as she holds herself like a fighter – but Reborn will have to see her in action himself before he makes a final judgement call on that.

He adjusts the brim of his hat, Leon making an annoyed noise as his nap is disturbed.

A thought occurs to him, and Reborn smiles again, this time with real mirth.

He _has_ been wondering how Hibari Kyōya would fare in a fight…

Two birds, one stone.

Wasn’t that how the saying went?


	7. man was born for love and revolution

_Her back hit the ground._

_Once, twice, three times._

_Four._

_Five._

_A hundred. A thousand._

_Rusalka pried herself out of the craters time and time and time again, feeling bone-deep exhaustion pulling at her marrow. But she stood and faced her opponent._

_Who that opponent was different, depending on the day._

_Her mother was her most frequent opponent, but often her many aunts would be the ones to pound her into the metaphorical pavement. Her various uncles rarely were the ones facing her, as most times they were responsible for the other facets of her training. Namely, the less physically violent parts._

_But there were days when she couldn’t pull herself up. When the fatigue was simply too much, when her arms would give out beneath her and she’d crash to the ground in a heap._

_Her cousins or aunts or uncles or just random spectators would carry her home, and pass her sweat-sodden, noodle-limp body off to one of the servants._

_Those were frustrating days. Those were the days when Rusalka wanted to ask herself why the fuck she was even trying to do this in the first place._

_No one would have expected more from her than just the bare minimum. No one would have told her that she needed to spend hours every day training until her knuckles bled._

_She didn’t_ have _to learn how to spin a morningstar or learn the proper way to throw daggers. She didn’t have to spend hours and hours hefting warhammers bigger than her own body, or lifting weights until she collapsed._

_Her mother would have been fine with Rusalka becoming a competent swordsman and keeping up with her education. Nothing else would have been required._

_She could have a quiet life. A peaceful life._

_…But she had already_ had _one of those._

_Not again. Not again, never again._

_(The last thing her Mama had ever said was ‘we’ll get some Taco Bell after you recover, all right?’ She remembered the anesthesiologist’s smile as she talked about how her bones felt like soup. Her Dad had kissed her forehead, his stubble rubbing against her skin. But most of all, she remembered the quiet._

_It had been so very quiet, for so very long.)_

_Rusalka pushed herself up. Curled her hands into fists._

_And she bared her teeth in a fanged smile._

* * *

**(seven)**

“You must be Sawada.”

Artemisios de Faal loomed over the quaking Tsuna, a curious look in her dark eyes. She was an impassive and _utterly_ impressive woman to behold, easily six feet tall in bare feet. Her skin was black with blue undertones like the sea at night, and her eyes were the same shade of dark as her two younger sisters.

She had that intense look in her eyes that made her look like a mountain…more so than she _already_ did.

“Stop scaring him, Temi,” Myles chided, stroking a hand over Tsuna’s head as she passed by to set the table. “You can back away if she gets too much, Tsuna. She has this effect on a lot of people.”

“He’s not scared of me,” Artemisios said finally, and pulled back.

She smiled, and it softened the granite-lines of her face. Tsuna returned the smile shakily.

“You sure about that?” Myles asked, sardonic.

Artemisios snorted. “Wary, yes, and intimidated. But not scared. You don’t find me frightening, little boy?”

Myles paused, looking at Tsuna sidelong.

“U-Um… _no_ ,” Tsuna said, and blinked as though he hadn’t expected himself to say that. He looked up at Artemisios again, and the trembling faded entirely away. “You’re not.”

Myles’s cousin nodded, looking deeply pleased. “And what do you see, when you _look_ at me?”

Tsuna blinked, at either the question or the strange emphasis. “U-Um, I-I…I see water. Deep waves. Something endless. Something…something comforting? I…I don’t know, I’m sorry, that was weird.”

Artemisios was quiet for a long, long time. Then she laughed, and took Tsuna’s pale face in between her large, dark hands.

“You, dear boy, have _nothing_ to be sorry for.” She looked at Myles, a new light in her eyes. “I understand, now. Do you want me to explain it to him?”

“Explain what?” Tsuna asked, looking slightly wary.

“A serious crime was perpetuated against you, Tsuna, and I intend on alleviating it,” Myles said.

“…A _crime_?” Tsuna looked bewildered.

“Let’s eat lunch, and I’ll try to explain.” Myles guided him to the table, and Artemisios followed, smirking.

It was a fancier meal than Myles normally made for the days Tsuna spent over at her house, but worth it. It was the first time she’d had one of her family over, and so the effort was made all through Sunday morning, with a curious Tsuna watching her avidly.

Dozens of kabobs of tender chicken and other types of meat were piled high on half a dozen plates, accompanied by bowls of as many fruits as Myles could get her hands on. Steaming, fresh made bread filled another three platters, while the seafood stew known as _moqueca_ simmered away on a portable boiler set near Artemisios’s plate.

Myles knew from experience that Artemisios could pack away an entire pot of the stuff by herself, and still have room for three more.

“You spoil me, little one,” Artemisios said with a happy grin, seated at the head of the table.

Tsuna just looked overwhelmed as Myles guided him into a chair and fussed over him for a bit. As she took her own seat across from him, she caught sight of her cousin’s smirk.

Heat rose to her cheeks. “Quiet, you,” she scolded.

“I never would have imagined little Myles being half so motherly,” Artemisios commented. “She must _really_ adore you, Sawada.”

Tsuna’s face went fire-engine red, and Myles knew hers looked much the same. “ _Temi_!” she protested.

Artemisios threw back her head and _roared_ with laughter.

Myles put her face in her hands. “Stop embarrassing me,” she whined.

“She’s the baby of our family, you know,” her cousin said to Tsuna. “We all adore her to pieces, and plenty of us weren’t pleased when she left, even though we understood.”

“Let’s eat,” Myles said, feeling the pleasure in her belly vanish at the reminder. “And discuss what you’ve really come here to do, shall we?”

“R-Myles-” She waved off what her cousin would say, and the sudden shame on the other woman’s face as well.

“We have more important business, cousin. I called you here to help me with Tsuna, remember?”

Artemisios nodded, and looked at Tsuna. “Fill your plate, and tell us everything that’s happened. Start with the beginning, when this… _Reborn_ , first showed up.”

It was different, listening to it from Tsuna’s own mouth. The ridiculous demands Reborn had made with little explanation, the outright abuse that a grown man (albeit one in the body of a deformed toddler) had gleefully inflicted on a fourteen-year-old kid…

And the whole getting shot and brought back to life thing was still just as horrifying

Artemisios even set her spoon down in the viscous bowl of soup as she listened to the horrifying tale, thunderclouds on her face.

It was only when Tsuna had finished speaking that she turned her attention back to her food.

“He did tell the truth when he spoke of being from the Mafia, and being here to make you a Mafia heir,” Artemisios said finally, tearing a hunk of bread in two. “He’s the personal assassin and quasi-guard dog of the current Vongola Don, Timoteo. He’s also a member of the group known as the Arcobaleno.”

“Ar-Arcobaleno?”

“ _Abominations_ that never should have existed as they do now,” the dark woman said, her upper lip curling back into a sneer. “But that’s irrelevant at the moment. The Vongola, once upon a time, weren’t actually the blood-soaked Mafia Famiglia they are in the present day, Tsunayoshi. They were led by a very good man by the name of Giotto, and our family – Myles’s family and mine – were allied with him.”

Tsuna chewed on a piece of bread, looking fascinated. Only Myles could feel the subtle waves of comfort and ease that Artemisios was emanating into the air, to make the conversation a little easier for all of them.

“Are you Mafia?” Tsuna asked, still looking curious.

Artemisios laughed, while Myles choked on an apple slice.

“No, nothing of the sort, Tsunayoshi. We’re just an old line, with a lot of history.”

“Half of my relatives would be quite insulted if someone called them Mafia,” Myles said wryly, and her cousin snorted. “And the rest would start blood feuds lasting centuries.”

“You’re not wrong…in any case, back to the Vongola! Giotto started the family to protect the people around him from criminals. To stop ‘protection rackets’, murders, extortionists, rapists, and what have you. General scum of the earth. Giotto was a good man, as was his partner and best friend Kozarto Shimon, and both of their families were formed with that ideal in mind. And they did a damn fine job of doing it,” Artemisios said, full into lecture mode.

It was a side of the woman few people outside of Myles’ family ever got to see. Artemisios de Faal had gotten all the love of teaching that her mother had possessed, and enjoyed nothing more than having an audience to the stories she could tell.

“Reborn said Giot-Giotto was my ancestor,” Tsuna said. “That his name was Ieyasu.”

“The little abomination was correct.” Artemisios finished her soup, and set her elbows on the table. “But did he tell you why a man from Italy would have come to Japan in the first place?”

Tsuna shook his head.

“Eat your kabob first, and I’ll tell you why,” Artemisios said, in the exact tone of voice she used when scolding her siblings, and Myles giggled as Tsuna did so.

“Things were muddled then, and the information we have from that time is equally so, but I’ll tell you the two stories that we’ve been told. One was that one of Giotto’s own men went mad with power and Giotto had to flee for his life. Another was that his heir, Ricardo, went mad with power and started turning the Vongola onto a far bloodier path. Ashamed of what happened, and being unable to stop it, he fled to Japan, and started a line that eventually gave us you.”

“Shouldn’t we be telling him about Flames, Temi-” Myles said, only to roll her eyes as her cousin flapped a hand at her. “I’ll be quiet, then.”

“Throughout the ages, Vongola became still bloodier, and still more violent. We attempted to maintain ties with Vongola and Shimon both, but a fracture in between the two families, including the disrespect of their respective Dons to us convinced our matriarch at the time that cutting ties was in the best interest of our people. And so we pulled away…Maybe, if we had stayed, we could have prevented what would have happened.”

Artemisios sighed, and took a sip of the ice-cold cider in her glass, before continuing.

“Things went on, and then Timoteo became the next Don. He had three sons, and one…bastard. Supposedly. His eldest, Enrico, was a lush who got himself shot when his current girlfriend at the time goaded him into fighting a duel he couldn’t win. Massimo got on the wrong side of some other people, and went out much the same way…

“Federico was the last. If he’d lived, we might have again made overtures to Vongola. He was a good man, in all the ways that would have made Giotto proud. He died violently for that idealism.

“And the bastard was ineligible. Even if he hadn’t been, he had become so ingrained into the culture of violence and degradation that Vongola under him would have become even worse than it had been under Ricardo’s day. He would have been an excellent commander of his own squad, known as Varia, and content to remain there if things had not been so utterly bungled within the ranks. He attempted a coup against his father – for reasons known only to himself, since we know he didn’t kill his brothers or even want to take the Decimo title – and was frozen alive in ice for eight years by his father.”

Tsuna looked horrified.

Artemisios sighed. “Make no mistake, Tsunayoshi, these _aren’t_ good people, no matter what propaganda this Reborn throws at you. Drug-running, weapons trade, blood diamonds, sex trafficking of _underage children_ – Vongola has had their hands in all of it and _more_. I can’t even begin to tell you how many cartels and dictators in South America and warlords in Africa have had Vongola help in getting a stranglehold on their countries, only that the number is even greater than those who had the help of the US government in doing so. Which I didn’t think was possible, personally.”

Tsuna was pale with shock. “A-And R-Reborn wants me t-to, wants _me_ to-”

Myles felt a little queasy herself. She’d known the Mafia was bad (the fact they’d let the damned Estraneo family run amuck was proof enough of that, and that whole shebang with Lambo), and that Vongola definitely was implicit in it, but to _this_ extent?

Good fucking god.

“Does this information come from Uncle?” Myles asked, needing confirmation, and her cousin nodded soberly.

 _Damn_.

If Uncle had passed this along, then it was 100% accurate. Nothing hidden, nothing sugarcoated, nothing exaggerated.

“Vongola is careful to portray a rather do-gooder persona to the rest of the Mafia, and they’re not the worst Mafia family you could ever run across, if you want to be accurate.” The smile Artemisios gave then was cold as Arctic ocean-ice. “But all that means is that they’re likely to make your death swift and painless, and that they’re not the sort that would make you watch your partner get raped and your children die in front of you before killing you as slowly as possible if you crossed them. Other Families would be less...kind.”

Tsuna blanched, and Myles laid a hand on her cousin’s arm.

“I think we should talk about Flames now, Temi,” she said, her voice low, a warning.

Artemisios sighed. “I just wanted him to know what he’s getting into.”

“He’s not getting into _anything_ , not if I have a say in it.” The thought of her Tsuna being responsible for those sort of crimes made her sick.

“You may not have a choice,” Artemisios pointed out. “You know we can’t interfere too much, and Tsuna’s going to need an army against these people. The Vongola are the most powerful Mafia Family in the world, after all.”

Myles raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I know you constitute half an army in your own right, but he’ll need more than just that.”

“ _I’m sitting right here_ ,” Tsuna protested, and both women looked at him. He looked confused and annoyed at being left out of the loop.

Myles rubbed her nose. “Let’s just talk about flames first, then we can plan how we’re going to overthrow the Mafia, yeah?”

“Very well,” Artemisios agreed.

She held up a hand, and red-brown flames began to shimmer into existence around her fingers. Tsuna shrieked, and nearly upended the table.

“Y-You’re on fire!”

“This type doesn’t burn me,” Artemisios assured him. “Neither does Myles’.”

Tsuna’s eyes snapped to her, and Myles called the lightning. It crackled around her skull and upper arms, and when she opened her eyes again she knew they were green. She tasted ozone in the air.

“Flames of the Will, is what these flames are known as,” Artemisios said. “It is one of many types of power in the world, and the strength of it directly corresponds to the willpower a person possesses. Myles’ Flames would be termed as Lightning, while mine are far rarer.”

“Earth, right?” Myles asked her cousin, watching the red-brown flames with interest.

She’d never mentioned that she possessed earth flames before (and didn’t canon only state that Shimon possessed them? Food for later thought)…but considering who – and _what_ – Artemisios actually was, it didn’t actually surprise Myles too much.

“Correct. These flames increase one’s stamina and overall fighting ability, along with special techniques available to each Flame user. Mine allows me to control gravity,” here she demonstrated by lifting a finger, and sending the bowls of fruit on the table spinning into the air, “and Myles’ flame-”

“-Allows me to harden parts of my body to super human levels, and similar things. Essentially, I’m a walking lightning conductor and tank, all in one,” Myles said, and grimaced as she smoothed her frizzing hair back down.

“Your flame, Tsunayoshi, holds the trait of Harmony-”

“B-But I don’t have one,” Tsuna said.

“Tsuna, you do,” Myles said, and Tsuna shook his head.

“I’d never have something near that cool,” he protested, eyes wide and guileless and words ringing with sincerity. “I-I’m just Dame-Tsuna. I can’t do anything like that! I’d just-

“ **That is _enough_**.” The table rattled as Myles slammed her hands against it, and it took her a minute to realize that the angry, shaking voice that had cut her friend off had come from her.

She crossed around the table, and hauled Tsuna to face her, chair and all, and dropped to one knee before him.

“Tsuna, when I was very young, my Mama told me something that’s stuck with me my entire life.” Through _both_ lives, as it was.

Myles closed her eyes and recalled the words.

“‘There are great men in this world, but they are not good, and there are good men also who will never become great. But there are some who are both. Those who are kind even as their power is immense. Men who never forget where they come from, even as they forge through mountains to get where they need to go. Men who are capable of changing the world in their wake, and still remaining true to the goodness that brought others to them in the first place,’” she said, and opened her eyes.

Tsuna was staring at her, again with that strange, helpless look.

“You may not see it now, Tsuna. But I _do_. You have the potential to be both great _and_ good. But it’s locked away right now, and I’m going to do my best to unlock it. I don’t give a shit about the Mafia, or Vongola, or whatever. I care about you. I care about you, and I will shake it into your bones however many times you need until you understand it. _You_. _are_. _not_. **_worthless!_** ”

Myles’ hands wrapped around Tsuna’s cold fingers, as she stared up at him, willing him to believe her.

He swallowed, and squeezed back. His gaze flickered, like he didn’t know where to look, before it landed on Artemisios.

“Tsunayoshi, you have only to look at the proof before you to realize the truth of your own goodness,” the dark-skinned woman said, eyes very solemn. “My cousin bends the knee to only a very few people. And _all_ of them are worthy of it.”

She shook her head. “It seems things are far more than I expected. Our family will stand behind you, because _she_ stands behind you.”

Myles stared at her cousin, who raised an eyebrow. “Did you expect otherwise?” Artemisios asked.

“I didn’t expect this at all, in truth,” Myles admitted.

What Artemisios was saying was no less than a declaration of war, and a declaration that all of their family – and those allied to it – would begin to move. For her. For _Tsuna_.

She had her army to face Vongola, and indeed to face all of the Mafia.

“I-I don’t…I don’t know what to do,” Tsuna said, sounding lost and completely overwhelmed.

“There’ll be time for that later. But first, the seal that’s keeping your flames locked away must be dealt with. Your flames, Tsunayoshi, are of the Sky, with the attribute of Harmony, to keep the balance among – which is why you have felt so off-balance your entire life.”

Tsuna _stared_ at Artemisios as Myles stood.

“It’s a crime, among my kin, what was done to you, and since no one seems to have handed down the deserved punishment, we shall do so. We figure that it was Timoteo who put the seal on you, to keep his ‘spare heir’ hidden, and that your father agreed to do it, uncaring of the consequences of his actions-”

Tsuna whirled in his seat. “ _My father_?”

“Yes, the head of the Vongola-affiliated CEDEF, the external advisors of the family,” Artemisios said, nonplussed. “Surely you…?”

“My mother told me he _died_ ,” Tsuna spluttered. He leaned back in his chair, one hand still clinging to Myles’ hand like he needed something to anchor himself.

Artemisios sighed.

“Let’s focus on the seal, shall we?” Myles said, gathering up the plates and bowls. “I prepared the basement so that you’ll be able to see what damage there is.”

“Haven’t you done that already?”

“I have, but you’re far better at it than I am. And I want you to see the seal firsthand. Tsuna, will you follow Artemisios downstairs? I’ll be right behind you.”

He swallowed hard, and nodded.

Myles watched them go, and hoped that she had put enough silencing spells up.

Artemisios was not going to be pleased when she saw the seal.

* * *

Myles was right.

Artemisios was indeed _not_ pleased by the seal, and her resultant rage when she discovered the breadth of the damage was strong enough to shake the very air itself.

It took some doing to keep her cousin from starting an earthquake in her fury, but eventually Myles got her calmed down enough to plan what they would do.

Neither of them wanted to forcibly yank the seal away – because who knew what that would do to Tsuna – so they decided on training, with Tsuna shakily agreeing. The boy had been even more rattled by what he’d seen inside himself.

Exposure to both Artemisios’ and Myles’ respective flames – along with the pendants that Artemisios had brought along – would strip away the layers of the seal until Tsuna’s could start fighting back and breaking free on their own.

Every day after school Tsuna would be escorted to Myles’ house, and after training was finished, Artemisios would deposit him back home through her magic. It would keep Reborn as removed from Tsuna’s life as possible, and thus keep the Vongola propaganda-machine away from him as well.

They would teach him the various (less-than-legal) tips and tricks that would allow him to survive in the criminal underworld, though. They would teach him everything they and their family knew about the Mafia and the Vongola and all those other bloodstained and callous _Famiglias_.

Myles had admitted to Artemisios that she knew it would be next to impossible to keep Tsuna away from the Mafia, unless they kidnapped him back to the Halls or something. And Myles knew that Tsuna was made for the human world, and to be among _humans_.

But they certainly wouldn’t let the Mafia consume Tsuna.

Instead, _Tsuna_ would consume the Mafia, and he would make it _better_.

(They had shown Tsuna the pictures, and the videos. The broken children, the desiccated homes. The folders bearing the names of past Vongola Dons, and the crimes they had committed. The wars that tore apart countries in Africa, where few people cared about the scope of horror being enacted there or why, so long as it brought them profit or didn’t affect them at all. The children who’d been rescued from slave rings – and those who hadn’t been found in time – and the ways they’d connected back to Vongola.

Uncle had passed them all over to Artemisios and then to Myles in turn.

Myles had handed over a file with his father’s own name on it when Tsuna had asked, and had held him after as he threw up his lunch and breakfast, crying and sobbing with shame and disgust and pain.

His father had left his family alone for years, only ever appearing when he felt like it…for _this_? For people who would do things like this? Why?)

Tsuna had looked at her, and his eyes had glowed orange – bright and fierce, even if it had lasted only for a moment.

And he’d asked them both to help him make it right.

“ _Naturally, Tsuna_.”

“ _I would be honored, Tsunayoshi_.”


	8. in which a circle begins to widen

_The first impression one received of Artemisios de Faal was that of strength and beauty._

_Rusalka did not meet Artemisios in her human form, as she had met – and would meet – the woman’s siblings. Rusalka’s first view of her cousin was in her true form, her immense coils wrapped in an ever-widening circle._

_It was in one of her new home’s many libraries, that the two first met. There was a pile of what looked like stone, and Rusalka was drawn to it, and to the fires that sparked deep inside it, lit from the sun’s rays._

_“You are not very cautious, little one.”_

_The snake was speaking. It was a huge snake, far bigger than any she had ever seen in either life._

_And it was_ speaking _._

_With all the caution of the little girl who’d – a lifetime before – gently wrapped a snake around her shoulders and fed it bits of cricket until her Mama had noticed and promptly freaked out._

_The scales felt like chips of stone, but impossibly smooth and warm to the touch._ Obsidian _, Rusalka thought, her eyes huge with delight._ It feels like it’s made of obsidian!

_This creature could have eaten her in a single bite, but-_

_“You’re_ beautiful _,” Rusalka whispered, reverent and soft._

_One of those huge eyes peered down at her, curious and – dare she say it – startled._

_“Strange child,” the snake said, and Rusalka grinned up at it, feeling small and very much like a child indeed._

_There was a vibration moving through the coils, and Rusalka knew it was laughter, feeling the joy and the wondrous pleasure rumbling against her hands as they pressed against the scales._

_“I’m Rusalka,” she said._

_“I am known these days as Artemisios de Faal,” the snake said, but Rusalka knew that wasn’t all of it._

_“That’s not your only name, is it?”_

_More silence. A bit shocked, a bit wondering._

_Then laughter, as the coils began to shrink, and as the room gained more space, a woman with night-dark skin stood where the snake once was, unclad and unashamed in it._

_She looked very much like Uncle did._

_“A long, long time ago,” the woman said, her voice smooth as water, and endless as the space that curled around the world itself, “I was called_ Jörmungandr, _the name my mother gave me.”_

_Her smile was like the rise of the sun, curling over the shoulder of the world._

* * *

**(eight)**

The next two weeks had gone incredibly well, with little interference from the ‘canon front’, as Myles privately called it.

Tsuna had blossomed under Artemisios’s patient yet insistent tutelage, while Myles had continued to help him with his schoolwork. They’d both come up with a schedule to train Tsuna, and to keep him as far removed from Reborn’s grasp as possible, with Artemisios’s magic being used to get them to and from school in an eyeblink.

And it was rare for Tsuna to spend any time at home these days, _especially_ after Artemisios had been introduced to Sawada Nana.

Myles winced at the thought of _that_ particular disaster, and hurriedly put it from her mind.

(The best thing that could be said about it was that there had been no casualties.)

It wasn’t like Reborn hadn’t done his damnedest to get his hands on Tsuna. Myles had been dodging attempts to snatch him for days now, herding Tsuna away from corners where he could be ambushed, and ferreting out and destroying Reborn’s hideaways around the school.

He’d even sent Mochida after her, the idiot, blustering chauvinist, but it had been the poor boy’s utmost misfortune that Berenike had been visiting at the time, to get to know Tsuna, and, well…

Now the kendo student couldn’t even look at either Myles or Tsuna without going pale, these days.

Tsuna had asked Berenike once and only once what she’d done to the older boy. The _light_ in Berenike’s eye had changed Tsuna’s mind in a hurry. He never brought up the subject again.

Smart of him.

(For someone who wasn’t technically of the Fae, Berenike could be just as cruel as the worst of them, when she was crossed, and every bit as _dangerous_.)

Recently, Reborn had stepped up his game with actual attacks on her person. Poison in her drinks if she left them alone too long, bullets shot from shadowy corners, razors in her shoes – anything that would remove her from the picture, either temporarily or more…permanently.

(Tsuna didn’t know the full extent of it, but he knew what Reborn was trying to do. Myles and Artemisios explained something of it, but not the whole thing. He needed to focus on breaking the seal, and reducing as much stress as he could, Artemisios explained to him.)

Myles had retaliated, with help from her cousins as they were slowly brought in on the game. Even Uncle, once he’d found out about “the outrage”, had started sending Myles…gifts.

The latest gift was a horde of magic-touched rats that hunted the pipes of the school for three days, nearly devouring Reborn’s pet chameleon before the hitman had managed to escape.

(Myles had laughed like a hyena when she’d heard, long and loud and strangely cruel, and feasted the rat-horde and their queen on as much cheese, fruit, and table scraps as she could find that day.)

Things had reached an uneasy truce after that, and all had been quiet for the past two days. No poisons in her food, no shadowy corners she had to steer Tsuna away from. Peace and quiet.

...In hindsight, she should have expected Reborn to throw a curveball at her, the damned chaos-monger.

* * *

Akemi was regaling Tsuna with a tale during lunch, while Myles dozed against the wall behind her. It was a funny story, ever so slightly edited to hide Akemi’s lack of humanity, and detailed the adventures of Akemi’s proud little sister, who’d gotten it in her head to try hunting a wild pig.

The girl had gotten chased up a tree by the enraged animal, and forced to stay there for the entire night, until Akemi’s other siblings and aunts had found her and killed the beast.

Akemi had laughed loud, her hands a wild blur of gesticulation, telling an attentively-listening Tsuna about how much her sister had resembled a drowned rat when she had been carried home at last, as it had rained all night as well.

Tsuna had giggled, and Myles had smirked, enjoying the tale and the teller both.

Lamia were always the best at stories-

The door banged open, and the conversation snapped to a sudden, startled halt.

“You aren’t permitted to eat up here,” came a cold, almost imperious voice.

Hibari Kyōya stood there, flanked at his sides by Kusakabe Tetsuya and an unknown member of the Disciplinary Committee. His face was like stone, blank and hard, but far more arrogant.

 _The god-king of Namimori_ , Myles thought wryly, as his black gaze swept over them, obviously expecting them to cower. Tsuna flinched a little, but that was all, and weightless pride curled down her spine in response.

Akemi mainly looked amused, emboldened as she was by Myles’ presence.

Myles herself barely blinked, instead unfolding herself just a little bit, something wary inside her skin.

She should have expected this, she chastised herself, knowing full and well that Reborn was behind Hibari’s confronting them. Who else would have thought to send the boy up here, when Hibari had never once paid attention to her, or to _any_ of them (besides Tsuna) since Myles had arrived?

To someone like Reborn, Hibari would be a potent weapon to throw at an unknown like her, someone who’d consistently and _frequently_ thwarted him. And unlike with Reborn – who was a stranger who Myles knew to be on guard for – Hibari was part of the weave and warp of Namimori. She wouldn’t be expecting him.

“Can we help you, Hibari-san?” Myles asked, her voice pleasant and cool.

Akemi hid a smile behind her hand.

“Crowding is not permitted,” he said, his voice just as cold as it ever was.

“So you call a group of three a crowd now, Hibari-san?” she purred, unfolding all the way. “Are you a _hypocrite_ , Chairman? Or are the two standing at your shoulders not part of a _crowd_ themselves?”

Hibari’s face stilled, and _tightened_ just a hair. Oh he was angry, yes, but it was more than that - he was shocked that she would stand up to him like this, as were his lackeys. Shocked that anyone would dare.

“I am curious about something, Hibari-san. Do the ‘rules’ of Namimori only apply to that which bothers _you_?” Myles asked, stepping out and past Akemi and Tsuna. “There is _nothing_ , after all, in the Student Handbook or Code of Conduct that forbids a gathering of three people during lunch in this area. After all, this place is open, and neither locked nor barred from student entry – and only in places with a Code-approved lock are students are not allowed to be. So yet again I ask you: why do you bother with this?”

“Don’t test me, _herbivore_ ,” Hibari snapped.

The epithet was startling enough that Myles paused. Then the _humor_ of it hit her, and she was laughing so hard she wheezed for air.

Akemi was stifling her equally incredulous giggles behind her, while Tsuna watched in awe.

A _herbivore_.

The fucking irony.

“Oho! A _herbivore_ am I, Hibari Kyoya? And what of you, then…Oh, what am I saying? A carnivore, you’d title yourself,” Myles whispered, and knew the Disciplinary Committee members at the boy’s shoulders were backing away. “A fearsome lion, ruling over his territory? Or perhaps a panther in the jungle? Just how deep do your delusions go?”

To anyone else, the tonfa would have caught them off-guard, so fast did it move.

But to Myles’s eyes Hibari’s strike was as slow as quicksand, and just as easy to stop. She wrapped a vice-like grip around the hand holding the tonfa, disabled the other arm with a press of her fingers to his shoulder. Both tonfa clattered to the ground.

Then she clamped her free hand around his throat, and leaned in.

In the voice she’d learned from Arkadios, she whispered, soft and sweet and _dangerous_ , “Do you know how infrequently carnivores make kills in the wild, boy? So often their prey _strikes back_. So often their prey gets away, or overpowers them.”

Akemi was humming in soft, reverent delight as Myles spoke.

“Do you know how many times herbivores have killed carnivores trying to eat them, Hibari Kyōya?” Myles crooned. “Carnivores must catch the weak, the ill, and the dying, the young and the too-old…and this isn’t for any display of puerile power, unlike your attempts at swaggering about the school. It’s for survival of themselves and their offspring – it is always about survival of the _pack_ , protecting their own, you stupid _child_ -”

“Myles.”

She paused at Tsuna’s voice, and turned just a hair. Tsuna had stood up, along with Akemi, and he watched her.

“Y-You made your point. That’s enough.”

Myles cocked her head to the side.

“I have little patience for hypocrites, Tsuna,” she said. “And since he cares so much about putting people in their place above all else, I thought it only right to treat him the same.”

Myles knew full and well that Hibari had turned a blind eye to the teasing and neglect Tsuna had suffered for years – and that wasn’t even the most infuriating part!

What really enraged Myles was this: _Hibari could have taken Tsuna under his wing._

If the fool boy had _stepped in_ – even if it was just when Tsuna had first come to Namimori Middle – how different would things have been? At the very least Tsuna wouldn’t have been forced to undergo the bullying and borderline _starvation_ he’d suffered.

If Hibari had brought Tsuna into the Disciplinary Committee…if Hibari had gotten Tsuna some training, helped to work on her friend’s still pitiful self-esteem issues! If he’d bothered to do _anything_ , instead prowling about the school pretending to care so much about ‘rules’ and ‘discipline’, when all he cared about was things that bothered _him_.

Certainly it wouldn’t have been ideal, as Hibari had the subtlety of a brick and the patience of a wounded bull, but it would have been _something_. Tsuna would have had a friend, a mentor, someone who cared about him. And Hibari had the clout among the teachers and administration to make it fucking stick!

But instead he had ignored it, unless Tsuna got in his way (as Myles knew from the little bit Tsuna had told her). Hibari had ignored the whole damned situation, ignored her Tsuna when he was _suffering_ , and now he was trying _this_ bullshit.

“You have little patience for ignor- _ignorance_ ,” he corrected her. “And you’ve made your point. He-He’s not like Reb-not like _him_. Don’t do something you’d regret.”

“I don’t know if I’ve made my point enough, for someone like him. Feral animals like him have a tendency to come back to bite unless you put them out of their misery early on,” Myles said, her voice only vaguely reasonable.

She remembered her Mama from long before reading To Kill a Mockingbird to her. She remembered Atticus with his glasses shooting the dog. Poor animal, a vicious symbol. A threat.

_Why’d he kill the dog, Mama?_

_It would have hurt people otherwise, E-_

“ **Myles**.”

Her name was a command in Tsuna’s mouth, and his eyes were orange. Her bones were locked into place.

She couldn’t move.

She didn’t _want_ to move.

 _Tsuna_ , she thought.

A solid, burning flame had lit in his eyes, and it filled her with her with a strange, weighty pride.

“You’ve made your point. He won’t try this again.” her best friend said, with nary a stutter. “ **Now let him _go_**.”

Myles could have denied him nothing in that moment.

She released her grip on Hibari, and stepped back, still keeping herself between the Cloud and Tsuna.

“Hi-Hibari-san, please leave. We’re not d-doing anything wrong,” Tsuna said, a hint of a stutter creeping back into his voice as he addressed the shell-shocked Chairman.

“And _besides_ , Chairman,” Akemi added, an arm wrapped around Tsuna’s shoulders. “Maybe you should focus on the one who sent you after us in the first place, yeah? You don’t think it was _coincidence_ , that barely a week after you start seeing a little midget sneaking around, you start getting messages trying to sic you on us like you’re some sort of dog…do you, _Chairman Hibari_?”

The fire lit back in Hibari’s eyes, like a tiny ember flickering back into life. Fury and rage and understanding kindled there. Reborn was good, yes, but Hibari wasn’t _completely_ an idiot. Just a little bound by tunnel-vision.

In that moment, it was clear to them all that Hibari realized he was being used. The god-king of Namimori was back, in the stone-lines of his face, in the quaking fury under his skin, his Flame just barely held away from the verge of eruption.

But to Myles, he just looked very young.

Hibari Kyōya was only fourteen years old, after all. She’d forgotten that.

“…Omnivore,” he said to her after a long pause, and turned on his heel.

Kusakabe shot her a strange glance as he and his companion followed after their fuming Chairman, and then the three of them were alone on the roof. Myles breathed in deep.

Akemi’s sudden laugh was a gust of wheezing air in the sudden silence.

“Well, he’s a piece of work, isn’t he?” the Lamia said. “After all-whoa, whoa, _Sawada_ -”

Myles spun around quick enough to grab Tsuna before he collapsed to the ground. His face was pale, and he swayed wearily in her arms as she pulled him close.

Not all of it was Flame-based exhaustion, she could tell.

“I-I talked back to _Hibari-san_ -”

“Yes, and I’m very proud of you-”

“ _I’m going to die!_ ”

“No you won’t-”

Tsuna babbled incoherently into her shoulder, while Myles and Akemi worked to reassure the overwhelmed boy that he would be just fine and that they _wouldn’t_ let Hibari run roughshod over him, and _it was really okay, Tsuna_ and that they were proud of him and-

Myles caught sight of Akemi’s strange, hopelessly fond smile over the top of Tsuna’s head, as the Lamia stroked a long finger down Tsuna’s cheek.

 _She’s as gone on him as I am_ , Myles realized, wryly amused, and wondered what would become of it.

Never, in all the history of the Mafia, had a future Don of a Famiglia won the heart of the daughter of a Lamia _Matriarkh_. Never had a Lamia given themselves _willingly_ , as Akemi was doing now.

…But then again, never had such a group surrounded a future Don as were surrounding Tsuna.

Beyond Akemi, there was Artemisios (daughter of the Jötunn, the Dream-Weaver, she of the Scales), and Berenike and Arkadios were slowly being drawn in as well, much to everyone’s surprise (they were the Trickster’s children in heart and soul, wolf-daughters). There was Uncle, too, though he was still on the skirts of their circle, and watched Tsuna’s with a strange, strange look in his dark eyes.

Then there was Myles, who was many things all at once, an impossibility given form.

Quite an Inner Circle was forming around her friend.

But a tiny voice whispered _what about his Guardians, though?_

Myles ignored it, and went back to soothing the rattled teen.

* * *

“Mind if we join you?”

Kurokawa Hana was a tall girl, a cacophony of sharp points and a jaunted hip softened only by the baby-fat still clinging stubbornly to her cheeks – though it did nothing to gentle the harsh (but not cruel) intensity of her gaze.

And of course Sasagawa Kyoko was at her side, hazel-gold eyes wide and curious. A simple girl, who looked a bit too much like Sawada Nana for Myles’ taste. The school idol, pretty and gentle and _sweet_.

Myles looked at her, _looked_ at them both, and got a bit of a shock.

They were Flame users, as Myles had somewhat expected. From what she remembered of fanon (and somewhat their canon personalities), the two girls had most often been pegged as a Mist Flame and a Sun Flame, respectively, if they ever bothered to flesh out the two girls.

Myles saw now that both assumptions were quite wrong.

Hana was a Storm, and Kyoko…

Kyoko was a _Mist_.

Myles bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Oh, but didn’t that change some things. Kyoko was gentle, demure, soft – but was she, _really_? She was the uncontested school idol, practically untouchable, and how had that happened?

She was a pretty girl, but nothing all that much to write home to (even though Myles well admitted she was doubly biased – both in terms of Kyoko’s similarity to Nana, and the fact that Myles had been surrounded by gorgeous people practically since birth). She was pretty and soft and almost _simpering_ -

She was also the first girl who’d ever talked to Tsuna.

The first person who showed a shred of care for him, with no reason other than the fact that she _could_.

_And she was a Mist._

Myles would have to think long and hard on that, and long and hard on the nature of Mists themselves.

And she would have to think about Kyoko, too.

What could Sasagawa Kyoko be capable of _here_? The gentle Mist with her fiercely protective Storm – what could they accomplish if they were given the tools to succeed early on?

What good could they do, if they were at Tsuna’s side and not hidden away so they could be ‘protected’ from something they would never be able to escape, purely because of who they were?

Tsuna was blushing as Myles looked at him, stuttering and stammering and not looking anywhere near Kyoko.

Ah, young puppy love. It was clear contrary orders wouldn’t come from him.

Smiling a bit, Myles turned back to Kurokawa Hana. “By all means,” she said, and the two girls sat down among them, opening their own lunches.

Soon Kyoko was deep in conversation with Akemi, with Hana watching in wry amusement. Tsuna looked vaguely shell-shocked, until Myles touched his elbow. She cocked her head to the side.

_Is this all right?_

Tsuna’s eyes were over bright, and he rubbed at them, before smiling at her and nodding.

_Yeah…thank you._

* * *

He shakes.

There are _things_ at the corner of his vision, things stalking him.

Mochida Kensuke is fourteen years old, and he fears for his life.

There are things in the walls, and they are _watching_ him.

He remembers it well, when it started. The woman had been waiting for him, when he’d gone to confront that ignorant foreigner. The woman had been waiting, and she’d pulled him, _laughing_ , into the shadows.

 _You wouldn’t be trying to_ hurt _my darling Rusalka, little boy, now are you?_

He moans and shakes. He is grateful his parents are not here, and yet he wants his mother-

The things chitter at him and he does not sleep.

 _I don’t_ like _people like you, Mochida Kensuke._

He does not dare to close his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not the biggest fan of Hibari, I have to admit, and his and Myles' relationship is going to be...rather rocky for a while.
> 
> Also! Keep in mind that, Myles still wears her pendant from her Uncle, and that informs a lot of the impressions humans have of her - _including Reborn_. First impressions, after all, are very hard to break, especially when they're reinforced by magic.
> 
> (And if you see any errors, please forgive me! I accidentally sliced my hand open at work, and it makes typing a wee bit difficult.)


	9. your smile is laced with dynamite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's my birthday, so here's a new chapter! Sorry it took so long.

_Rusalka didn’t realize the training was taking hold for some time._

_She still trained primarily with the older women (and sometimes men) of her family, and all of them were light-years away from anything Rusalka was capable of giving in battle._

(Yet.)

_So it was how she judged herself: the bruises on her back from hitting the ground so many times, the way the weights she buckled under seemed like feathers in the hands of her aunts, the burn in her legs, and the solidly consistent ache._

_Rusalka judged herself by how she failed, and how far she still had left to go._

_(A trait that had carried over from her last life.)_

_Until…_

_There were visitors to the Halls, brutish men, tall and thickly-muscled. They had an air about them, of swaggering warriors and overweening masculinity, preening like peacocks in their polished armor and gleaming swords._

_“Here to ask for sanctuary,” Arkadios said, yawning in amusement._

_“Defector-sons from a few of the other pantheons, perhaps,” Berenike said, grinning a fanged smile._

_Rusalka stood with her cousins in the throne room, while her mother received the guests in the King’s name. She disliked how they seemed to sneer on everything they saw and she especially loathed the way their leaders spoke to her mother._

_Condescension, flavored with a hint of a patronizing sneer. They wore their disgust with a woman in command with infuriating smugness._

_What was the meaning of this, to be so insulting in the Halls where so many women-warriors reigned supreme? What utter stupidity. What arrogance._

_Her mother, dressed in the expensive, yet simple clothes she always wore, eschewing even a circlet to wear upon her head as was her right, reacted not at all to the insults. Her royalty was the straightness of her back, the command sitting on her shoulders, and these-these men were too stupid to see it._

_“I will consider your request to join the warriors of these Halls, half-sons of Thor and half-sons of Zeus, if you would fulfill a request of mine own,” her mother said, her voice implacable._

_The hall bristled, and Rusalka felt more than saw Arkadios and Berenike fume in sudden rage._

_“Name your desire, oh sweet lady,” the golden haired man all but simpered._

_“She isn’t really going to-” Arkadios said, sounding offended._

_“Peace, sisters,” Artemisios, draped in blue like the oceans, came up behind them, laying a hand on their shoulders. Rusalka gave her cousin a look._

_“The whore-sons of that rat-bastard deserve no place in our Halls, not while Nir still shakes in his sleep,” Berenike said, her lip curling into a wolf’s snarl._

_“And our beloved Aunt will not._ Watch _.”_

_“Rusalka!”_

_Rusalka jerked at the sound of her name in her mother’s strident tones. But she went hither as the woman beckoned, because she could deny this woman few things._

_She knelt at her mother’s feet, and rose with her mother’s sword in her hands, her ears ringing._

_“If you win against my daughter, the two of you fighting together to best her…If you win, you shall become my new Captains of the Guard,” her mother said, and the men laugh._

_A lewd look from the dark-haired one of the two leaders had Rusalka’s grip on the sword hilt tightening._

_“Can we have her too, when we win? Should be a sweet thing to bed.”_

_At this insulting call from one of the soldiers, one of the other jumped-up bastards of middling gods, the room rippled in fury. Countless eyes narrowed in rage, Rusalka’s among them._

_It was simple then, no matter her trepidation at fighting these warriors. Rusalka shed her outer robes and let them fall. They stood there, these impertinent fools with delusions of grandeur, and insulted her and her mother. That would not be born._

_She hefted the sword with surprising ease, sank down into one of the many forms her mother insisted she learn alongside the hand-to-hand combat._

_“You are not worthy, in any capacity, to share my bed,” Rusalka stated baldly. “But we have some sows out back that you might find more to your taste.”_

_Laughter rippled now across the room, chasing the fury on the men’s faces._

_And the laughter burst like waves around her as she stood – a mere five minutes later, not even breathing all that hard – above the fallen men, her sword at the blonde’s throat._

_The laughter chased the men from the Hall, their tails tucked between their legs._

_Rusalka stood there, among the applause and bright laughter of her kin, and looked her scarred hands in a new light._

_…Not bad._

_No, that was not bad at all._

* * *

**(nine)**

Reborn is going to _murder_ Sawada Iemitsu if it is the last thing he ever does.

Timoteo can find another damned leader for CEDEF, because Reborn is _past_ caring at this point.

It’s been close to four weeks since he arrived in Namimori, and he’s only been able to corner Tsunayoshi three times before that damned American whisked him away.

The boy hasn’t even been home more than _five times_.

Reborn strokes his fingers over Leon’s back. His chameleon had refused point blank to be parted from him ever since they’d been chased from the hideouts hidden around the school - not that Reborn could blame him.

(He knows that Delano was behind that particular incident. He just _knows_.

…Fucking _rats_.)

It’s patently clear that the information CEDEF sent him – if not _entirely_ inaccurate – is woefully lacking. Myles Delano is far more than just a girl with military training, and the fact that CEDEF didn’t manage to find that out the second time he requested information infuriates Reborn.

And those three other foreigners who’ve been appearing around Tsunayoshi…Reborn doesn’t know them, and he can’t find out _anything_ about them. They shouldn’t be related to Delano, and yet what very little he’s seen of them indicated a familial relationship.

Another annoyance – the information gathered by CEDEF the second time is _technically accurate_. Reborn has seen to it himself and confirmed several points of it, which only makes the paranoia even worse.

Myles Delano _is_ the only (bastard) daughter of Mary Delano, who was mentioned _by name_ by several high-ranking members of the US Army. Robert Delano is very much the beloved, wealthy grandfather who’d disowned his daughter but loved his granddaughter enough to pay her way through school in another country.

Oh, it is all _technically true_.

And yet there are discrepancies.

Starting with those Americans – including the one who’d so terrified Mochida, left the idiot boy twitching in his own shoes. Three of them, all dark-skinned and runaway-model-esque, with figures and smiles that could put even Bianchi at her finest to shame.

They’d closed ranks around Tsuna and Delano both like bodyguards, making it near impossible to get anywhere near them or the house (where Tsunayoshi spends all of his time at these days).

Reborn knows they are training Tsunayoshi – the boy comes to school half asleep on his feet, singed some days, scraped and bruised still others. But there’s a spark in his eyes that’s growing each moment. His shoulders straighten a little each and every day. He’s moving just a little bit easier, a little bit faster.

Tsunayoshi is becoming more confident, and the worst part of it all – Reborn has had next to _nothing_ to do with it.

All he has spent his time here doing is trying to keep the influences away from the boy who’s supposed to be his student, and failing utterly, beyond being able to use the Dying Will Bullet all of once.

(Reborn is not used to failure. It fucking _pisses him off_.)

Tsunayoshi is forming a Circle of his own, Reborn knows this as well.

Delano, those three other Americans, the girl Mizuiro Akemi ( _daughter of wealthy businessman Mizuiro Rikuto and his wife Yoruichi, both well-connected to the Japanese underworld while still remaining on the legal side of things. The two were the smart ones, capable of keeping both the police and the Yakuza well at bay, while profiting from their actions_ ), along with two of his female classmates – the school idol and Tsunayoshi’s crush ( _Sasagawa Kyoko, pretty, popular, possibly good mistress material?_ ), and that Kurokawa Hana ( _middle-class family, would maybe do well as a fighter with seductress training_ ).

None of them – except perhaps Mizuiro, for her connections – is a good fit.

He sits back, glaring irritably at the ceiling of the coffee shop that is a front for Vongola business here in Namimori. The school is out as a place to plan, what with the rats still ‘patrolling’, and that half-feral brat Hibari stalking around. (Though the former is far more a threat than the latter.)

Reborn isn’t an idiot. He has to act fast if he’s going to get anything of a foot in the door of Tsunayoshi’s life, before those foreigners shut him out completely. He needs to see what damage they’ve done to the boy, to the heir of the goddamn _Vongola Family_.

Timoteo’s going to start sending challenges to his heir soon, and Reborn _knows_ that the boy isn’t anywhere near ready for what those challenges are going to entail, unless Reborn can get his hands on him first.

He takes a sip of his coffee.

First thing to do is to remove the hold those Americans have over the boy.

After all, Tsunayoshi would have to have a Circle that would be accepted among the Mafia, and an Inner Circle comprised entirely of women (and most of them _Americans_ at that) would not do.

Not even Daniela (may she rest in peace) had bucked the tradition enough to have women among her Inner Circle, or even just among her advisors – though she had had a well-entrenched circle of women who often joined her from tea, and who consisted of some highly trained Flame users in their own right.

(There were rumors that Vongola Primo had had several women among his Circle, and even a few had nearly been considered for the positions of his Guardians. But times had been even more restrained then than they were now, and so he had not.)

He’d given thought to Hibari – a picture perfect Cloud – but he’d have to find the time to mould the boy into something a bit more fitting of a Vongola Guardian, and not the half feral animal he is now.

No, he needs someone else to drive the first wedge in between that ever-closing group, open it up to proper influence.

Leon begins to twitch in his hands, shaping and twisting, and Reborn focuses on the animal, watching curiously.

He grins when he sees the shape the chameleon has formed.

It’s a quick and easy call to make – he’s kept an eye on this particular freelancer for a while now, ever since he found out he’d be training the civilian heir to Vongola – and the rude voice that answers him after four rings becomes a whole hell of a more respectful when Reborn speaks.

“Pack your bags, you’ll be expected in Japan in a week.”

Reborn listens to the response, and his grin gains an edge like a knife.

“I have a job for you, Gokudera Hayato.”

* * *

In retrospect, Myles should have expected Reborn to actually make a serious attempt at throwing her off her game earlier. But after she’d sicced the rats on him, she’d honestly thought he would stop…at least for a while.

_Shows what I know_ , Myles chided herself irritably.

The thought seemed incredibly foolish now, as the silver-haired boy at the front of the class glared in a way that might have registered as vaguely alarming…if he didn’t look like he’d raided a Hot Topic before he’d come to school.

Silver and black chains hanging from his neck, bearing pendants with ‘edgy’ designs, rings on every finger – oh gods, the boy actually had a _spiked bracelet_ and _choker_ on.

Even when Myles had been full on into her own ‘goth’ phase – which hadn’t lasted too long, because too much black and leather made her sweat horribly – she’d never worn a spiked collar.

_Don’t start laughing, don’t start laughing!_

She caught Tsuna biting his lip out of the corner of her eye, and raised an eyebrow at him. Her friend promptly buried his face in his arms, frantically stifling his laughter.

Rubbing her hand over her mouth to keep from giggling, she turned her attention back to the foreign exchange student, just as he began sauntering down the aisle towards Tsuna’s desk, glare firmly in place.

The teacher’s suggestion of where to sit had been firmly ignored, and Myles’ smile went lopsided. She’d forgotten this part…but she knew a way that would put the grumpy child in his place.

Seconds before Gokudera could raise his foot to kick Tsuna’s desk over, Myles tapped her fingers together, making the patch of floor directly below his foot super slippery. She twisted her fingers and _yanked_ , pulling the bomber off-balance via a small current of air twisting around his knee.

The resultant pinwheeling, arms-flailing, cursing spectacle had the entire class laughing behind their hands, while Myles made a snarky comment to Rina, who giggled so hard she snorted.

Myles didn’t think that such a little thing would do much to stop the headstrong bomber, but this was only the start. Things seemed – in this one aspect, at least – to be adhering to canon.

…No, that was wrong. Myles looked at her notebook, and at the mindless doodles she’d marked at the edges of it.

In the actual canon, Gokudera had come after the volleyball incident. Within a day or so, hadn’t it been? And the volleyball incident had been fairly early as well – and _that_ hadn’t happened either.

Neither had the ‘fight’ with Mochida, since Myles had been diligent at keeping Tsuna away from the upperclassman, and Berenike had finished the job by traumatizing him so badly that the boy couldn’t look at her or Tsuna without twitching these days.

Maybe this was more along the lines of the anime? Myles rubbed a broken piece of pencil lead between her fingers, studying the marks it made on her flesh.

From what she remembered, the anime had stayed true to the manga for the most part, only seriously diverging in later chapters.

Myles rubbed the bridge of her nose. _Note to self, definitely get a notebook to write down what I remember, because this shit is starting to blur in my head_ , she thought.

It didn’t help matters that the Daily Life Arc had been a boring and long-winded arc that had drawn out for _60 goddamn chapters_ , occasionally interspersed with interesting snippets, and so Myles had barely paid any attention to it.  It had only been when Mukuro arrived on the scene that the past Myles’ interest in the series had even really kicked off.

And afterwards, she’d never seen a reason to bog herself down with the first arc, so she would often skip it entirely, reading only the chapters that interested her before moving on with the rest of the story.

…Which didn’t help her now that she was _living it_.

Maybe that was the problem. She was living this story, and as such, she was changing it by her very presence. She’d known that would happen from the very start, and she’d _accepted_ it when she’d started making inroads to improving Tsuna’s life.

It was worth the uncertainty, she’d told herself one day while watching Tsuna’s back hit the ground, hearing Artemisios’s sharp and still utterly, utterly kind voice telling him _you’re weaker on your left, and keep your wits around you at all times in battle!_

It was worth the annoyance, to watch Tsuna pull himself up and face her cousin, eyes flashing with his determination, and a tiny smile on his lips.

…Still, it was damned inconvenient.

* * *

The trash cans are a lot easier to carry now, Tsuna thinks as he walks outside. The results of the backbreaking training with Artemisios are starting to show, even as the bruises never seem to fade.

He doesn’t mind it. Myles is quietly proud of him every time he pulls himself up, and while Artemisios won’t let the two of them spar (“Not until you’re a lot stronger and more durable, kid. Myles is a bit… much for a beginner to handle in battle.”)

Tsuna doesn’t quite know why Myles is so distrusting of the new student, beyond his appearance, which he doesn’t think is all that much of a concern to her anyway, considering some of her relatives dress a lot more scary than that.

(Artemisios wasn’t so bad, and had a reassuring fondness for blues and dark golds, but _Berenike_ …she really, really liked spikes and chains and flashy things.

She’d once showed him how she could kick a hole in a wall with her super-sharp heel of the stilettos she always wore, and Tsuna had been scared shitless – and secretly quite impressed – ever since.)

He knows she’s responsible for Gokudera going face first into the floor when he’d been about to kick Tsuna’s desk, just like Tsuna _knows_ she’s responsible for all the other retaliation aimed at his bullies, but he doesn’t know why.

When she’s guiding Tsuna through the halls to best avoid Gokudera and Reborn – who’s popped up a few times, spewing all sorts of propaganda about the Mafia that Tsuna wouldn’t have believed even if he didn’t have Myles and Artemisios in his life now – there’s an amused smirk on her lips when she sees Gokudera. She doesn’t think he’s a threat, obviously, considering how unconcerned she is around Hibari

And Hibari is a _lot_ scarier than Gokudera, anyway, and Myles isn’t bothered at all with the attention Hibari gives her (curious glances, prowling around the edges, watching her with consideration whenever she passes), only shooting him a fearsome glare whenever Hibari looks like he may turn his attention on Tsuna.

(She’d mentioned something about ‘a carnivore respecting a stronger carnivore’s territory or whatever’, looking incredibly amused as she did…He still has no idea what that meant, and isn’t sure he wants to know.)

Myles just doesn’t want Tsuna near Gokudera, it seems. Why?

…The teacher had mentioned Gokudera had been in Italy for a time.

D-Did that mean he was _Mafia_?

_He’s only fourteen_ , a startled and incredibly horrified part of his mind says, before reality slaps him across the face.

Tsuna is only fourteen as well, and yet Reborn wants to make him the heir to one of the most deadly Mafia families in the world. It shouldn’t surprise him that people his age are part of the Mafia. He’s seen what the Mafia does, after all.

It’s not the worst of their crimes.

Still, the thought of it is a cold weight in his stomach, and he doesn’t notice where he’s going until he hears a sharp curse behind him.

“You!”

Gokudera stands there, a cigarette in his mouth, his eyes glaring daggers at Tsuna. It’s not nearly half as intimidating as when Artemisios does it, and so he doesn’t even tremble under the force of it.

Artemisios and Berenike (her most of all) and Arkadios and Myles – _they_ are all terrifying. After several weeks around them, and especially after training with Artemisios, Tsuna isn’t all that phased by the hostility from this boy his own age.

Tsuna blinks, and for a moment he saw a tiny yapping dog that Arkadios had shown him a picture of a couple days ago. The scowl, he remembers, was just like Gokudera’s.

He couldn’t help the snicker that escapes him at the memory.

Gokudera’s scowl, somehow, gets even fiercer.

“Piece of shit,” he snarled.

Tsuna stiffens at the insult. “ _Excuse_ me?”

“If a cowardly little piece of shit like you becomes the 10th, the Vongola is finished,” the silver-haired boy snaps and Tsuna wants desperately to groan. Yup, definitely Mafia.

There’s a sort of desperate reverence in the way he says _Vongola_ , though, a reverence Tsuna distinctly does _not_ like.

It’s sorta like how Akemi’s friends talk about Yamamoto, or a new boy idol they’re all crushing on, but even worse. It’s setting off all sorts of red flags in the back of Tsuna’s head, flags Tsuna has only learned to pay attention to since Myles flipped his life upside down.

He sees something in Gokudera’s eyes as he snarls more threats, threats that suddenly seem like the frantic bristling of a wild animal backed into a corner, nursing old wounds and wary of getting more, trying to show the world that he was a threat, so don’t even try to come near him.

And Tsuna _wonders_ , even as the other boy pulls out dynamite, in a small part of his mind, all cool, banked fire. He wonders, even as Reborn appears and spews that nonsense about fighting Gokudera to become the 10th Don of the Vongola family, even though Tsuna already told him no thank you-

(WHERE DID HE GET _DYNAMITE_ FROM, the rest of his conscious mind shrieks, still freaking out about it, AND WHO THE HELL USES IT TO FIGHT?)

Gokudera is Mafia, definitely.

But.

_But_.

…was he always? Was this a path he chose himself?

The other boy is all but bristling in scars, scars Tsuna can read plain as day, even if he doesn’t know why. Myles has scars aplenty, as do her cousins, but they all wear them with a careful weight, not this buried-deep fear that Tsuna can see – in flashes and spurts – in Gokudera’s eyes.

_People don’t choose this sort of fear by themselves_ , Tsuna thinks suddenly.

Tsuna tries to run – even with Artemisios’s training, he’s not nearly fast enough to knock away twenty sticks of dynamite – but he trips over himself and that instinctive fear that clutches at most of his higher functions.

He hits the ground, and wait for pain, waits for death-

The air _screams_.

He tastes ozone on the air as something across in his bones, shaking him to his marrow. There’s a gust of wind, and explosions in the near distance. Not on him, not splattering his brains across the ground.

A moment of breathless silence – and Tsuna is still alive.

Tsuna turns onto his back, wincing painfully, and blinks.

There’s a white-covered back facing him, and there are pockmarks in the ground near them – but none touching the ground on which they were. He sees ruined bits of dynamite and paper, all that’s left of Gokudera’s attack.

Myles _snarls_ , trembling with rage like he’s never seen before.

He remembers Artemisios’s words – _“When the blood gets up in Ru-_ Myles’ _heart, it’s not good for anyone who doesn’t know how to fight really well to get around her. You’ve got a while left before you’re anywhere near ready to fight my cousin, Tsunayoshi.”_ – and he thinks he understands them.

“It is _such_ bad idea to try and attack what is mine, little boy,” she hisses.

She doesn’t sound human now, and yet somehow Tsuna isn’t scared.

He feels, strangely enough, rather comforted.


	10. our paths are not mapped

_Rusalka’s world was home to countless beings that ranged the whole breadth of mythology as she had once known it. A fascinating variety of spirits and demons, gods and goddesses, and a thousand others lived somewhat peacefully under the Hall of the King._

_To the woman she had once been, they were people of legend._

_But to Rusalka, they were her family. They were_ hers _._

_There was Uncle, who was like the Sandman and a giant all at once, and her cousins, who were some form of demi-gods in their own right (meeting Jörmungandr had been quite a shock), but there were others, too. Countless others, who were wonders and surprises all at once._

_Aunt Andi, the once chef of the Aesir, who had wandered in search of a home once she had lost her allure to Thor. Acantha, a cousin who wore her thorns like a crown. Medusa and her sisters, the forerunners of the Lamia race, who had been given the_ choice _of turning people to stone by the King – they were Rusalka’s aunts and friends as well, who taught her stories when others didn’t have the time._

_She knew Sun Wukong as well (a trickster, who got on_ alarmingly _well with Aunt Loki), countless river goddesses and celestial spirits who only came to visit on certain days. They were all named among her family, and they welcomed her as sister or daughter in all but blood._

_Thousands of giants from across the world could also be found wandering the Halls – Chinese creatures to Slavic beings of varying levels of wisdom and bloodlust. Nephilim were not an uncommon sight – they were not monstrous as the Bible had described, but a peacefully ethereal race who reminded Rusalka quite of elves. And she discovered that it was from them that the Elvhen folk she knew had come._

_She spent several years with the Kings under the Mountains (the Dwarven-folk), and came to know their Kings (seventeen of them who passed during her time, from Durran to Suðri, son of the South King)._

_The forty-nine Danaids were handmaidens of her mother, plucked from Tartarus by her mother’s own hand, spared the fate that came after their refusal to bow to the whims of the husbands they had been coerced to marry. There were plenty of other women and daughters and wives and victims of the gods who found refuge within the Halls, from hundreds of different times and places around the world._

_Her primary teachers in the art of war outside of her immediate blood-family were the Amazons, and the Oracles were her teachers in philosophy. Cassandra was her mother’s friend and like a sister to Rusalka. She had been rescued by Rusalka’s mother from the arms of death, and had been given back the gift of believed prophecies by the King, to whom she had sworn herself to._

_Countless pantheons of disaffected gods found strength and solace in the Halls (Oya of the Yoruba – chased away from her people by settlers and colonizers – was a friend of her mother’s, and was using the power invested in Halls in order to return one day). And even those who did not need to, for they had worshippers and power aplenty – the Hindu pantheon, for one - often came to speak with the King or with Rusalka’s mother. For friendship. For comfort._

_Rusalka’s very best friends and guards (beyond her cousins, of course) were the mer-people. Mostly maids, they with a thousand different looks (women from the horn of Africa all the way to the Arctic), and they loved to hear Rusalka sing to them. They taught her to swim, and showed her the oceans of their world._

_And there were so many others. Thousands, perhaps, who knew her as she could probably never know them, who had witnessed her naming and called good wishes as she passed. Her family, her friends._

_It was a marvel, sometimes, to sit and watch this world of hers, as it flowed and ebbed around her, to listen to the languages of her family, and to hear them greet her, with smiles and welcomes in a thousand different ways._

_“Why do they like us so?” Rusalka had asked her mother once, after they had met with some youkai from Japan. “Why are they so loyal? Why do they even want to bow to the King’s will?”_

_So many people, who swore themselves to her family. Why?_

_Her mother simply blinked, and then smiled. “Because we ask of them no more than what we give in return. We ask only for loyalty, and repay it as it is paid to us. We do not ask them to cast away what they are and what they have been. And that is no small thing, my daughter.”_

_Rusalka watched as one of her mother’s cousins spiraled through the air outside the window, and smiled._

_It was a strange life, perhaps, and one the woman she had been before would never be used to. But the woman she had been before had been an only child, isolated from her extended family and whatever culture they may have wished to pass on by anti-social parents._

_Rusalka found that – in this new life - she rather liked having a large family to know._

* * *

**(ten)**

Berenike hums as she dances her fingers over the sigils that denote the Sun Arcobaleno, pouring more of her poison into them, and by proxy, into the Arcobaleno himself.

It isn’t anything that will actually kill him, just, make him a little bit _less_.

(A little bit less than he already is, considering the curse and all.)

Unlike most, Berenike really didn’t hate the Arcobaleno – the sins of the creator (or was it father? …she could never keep track of those quaint colloquialisms) weren’t anyone’s fault _but_ the creator’s. And most of their people _knew_ that, it was just…eh, scapegoats were convenient when the one at fault wasn’t present, and there were a lot of very bad feeling still lingering, and a _lot_ of insult.

(And sometimes the fault lies not even with the creator, she thinks suddenly, her mind going to darker, more hateful places.)

Berenike shakes it off, and focuses. She doesn’t _want_ to kill the diminutive hitman, after all. And yanking his strings around is so much fun! And she has to be careful, what with the Curse and all draining his flames. She can’t go too far, or she would end up killing him – or worse.

…It is a damned shame though, as she’d seen that fire inside the weirdly-sized man (seriously, why did the curse _do_ that?) and it was so pretty to behold.

He must have made a _wonderful_ sight in battle when he was without the curse, sorta like Mama-Sigyn when she danced. Papa-Lo and Papa and Mama-Sif are better fighters, but Mama-Sigyn is beautiful and so _fast_ when she fights, she and her twin daggers.

Mama-Sigyn and Reborn have the same Flame type and everything, and the few pictures her Papa had managed to scrounge up had shown that Reborn had once been a _very_ beautiful man, almost as beautiful as Mama-Sigyn.

He would have easily fit in among her and her kin in the Halls.

It is a shame he is Mafia, really.

Berenike mentally shrugs, not even faltering a second as Arkadios drapes her arms over her shoulders, peering down at the sigil.

“Myles really is going to kill you if she sees this,” her sister remarks, amused.

“That’s why we’re _not_ going to let her see it!” Berenike says cheerfully.

“Oho, _we_? _I_ don’t ever remember agreeing to this, sister mine. And Myles said we weren’t to fuck with the people around here with serious magics, as you well know.”

Berenike scowls at the face resting on her shoulder. “She didn’t complain about Mochida. Or the rats.”

“She didn’t complain about Mochida because you used a very simple spell on him, not one that will be likely cripple him for life and quite possibly give him brain damage. And because our dearest cousin is a sadist. Also, the rats aren’t a mental spell.”

Berenike’s shoulders hunch, even as her lower lip pushes out into a scowl. “If you don’t wanna help, then go away,” she snaps. “And Myles won’t mind. I know she won’t.”

She just wants to make things easier for Myles and Tsuna, really! She knows that Myles has it in her head that she wants Tsuna to overthrow the Mafia by becoming the head of the Vongola and changing it from the inside, but that’s kinda dumb.

And since Myles is one of their family, and with the blood of the King no less, she’ll just have to watch Tsuna die eventually, and Berenike doesn’t want that. It’d be much better for both of them – and Akemi could come too, and those cute girls Tsuna liked – if they just came back to the Halls.

Tsuna wouldn’t be the first human accepted among them (…if he was actually human entire, something Berenike _still_ didn’t know for sure) and he will be safe from the assholes who put that cursed seal on him.

Berenike knows that if Reborn actually manages to corner Myles and Tsuna – which he would have if she hadn’t done this, considering he was stupidly resistant to her magic and tricks for a human, especially one with the curse – he would have succeeded in convincing Myles to give him a chance, and for Tsuna to give the _Mafia_ a chance.

(The whole reason she’d started doing this ritual was because she wanted to impair him enough that he couldn’t get near either her cousin or Tsuna, and traditional magics straight up _hadn’t_ worked. He threw them off like Myles could throw off Mist flames.

Myles is good at avoiding people, but she isn’t good enough to avoid someone who could do that. Reborn is on a whole ‘nother level, Berenike knows, and normally she would have respected that. But not when family was on the line.)

Or Tsuna would have folded Reborn in among their group like he’d done with her and Artemisios and Arkadios, and then felt beholden to going along with the agreement to becoming the Decimo. And Myles would have gone along with him, because Myles is kinda stupid and shortsighted when it comes to Tsuna and what she thinks is best for him.

(Myles was always more suited for battle, really, instead of thinking strategically.)

What is best for all of them is that they return to the Halls, _away_ from this human nonsense. Myles has _some_ human in her, but not much at all! She will never be totally comfortable in the human world, Berenike knows. She just doesn’t understand that – but she will. She has to.

And it’s only because of a few rotten eggs that Myles ever left their world in the first place.

_I have to turn my attention to killing Puck without anyone knowing after this,_ Berenike thinks irritably. _If that fucker hadn’t hurt Myles like he did, we wouldn’t even be in this situation. Damned Fae-spawn._

“Papa-Lo,” Arkadios’s voice jerks Berenike out of her trance, and she registers a familiar presence standing behind them.

Oh shit.

_Oh shit._

Berenike turns, flailing a bit, and nearly upends the table as she faces her father.

He – she, actually, Berenike corrects herself, looking at the short hair and curves her father favors when she wants to be addressed as female – doesn’t look happy in the slightest.

(Uh oh.)

“My idiot girls,” she says, and closes the door to the secret room behind her. “Your mother has told me that you have done something ill to one of your blood.”

Berenike rears back, shocked at the accusation. “Papa-Lo, I would never!”

Family is _sacred_. Berenike would never lay her hands on any of her blood in malice or for ill-will, not for anything in all the worlds! Maybe she would do so to help, yes, but nothing more and nothing awful!

(She hadn’t done anything bad to Myles, she tells herself. It was necessary. Just a _trifle_.)

But the way Papa-Lo was speaking made it sound like she’d done something _really_ bad.

“Papa-Lo, what are you talking about?” Arkadios protests, only sounding a hair less offended than Berenike. “We’d never ill use any of our family, and Papa wouldn’t let us, even if we’d had the urge!”

“Boda wouldn’t have realized, considering it was not one of _his_ blood who was harmed, or even just one he bore, like the two of you. And he is busy enough with his work. You’ve laid your hands on one of your half-brothers, idiot girls. One of Sigyn’s sons she bore during my exile, and before our reconciliation.”

Her words are blunt and straightforward, and the hair rises up on Berenike’s back. To have their Papa-Lo, one of the greatest tricksters in the world, speak so plainly, when normally she delights in half-truths and weaving her meanings beneath the weight of her words for the canny to uncover…

Berenike swallows hard. Papa-Lo was very, _very_ angry.

“Pa-Papa-Lo…ah, we…who is it?”

“A boy named Renato Sinclair. You’d know him better as Reborn,” the woman says, and her eyes are _hard_ where they land on the table with Berenike’s work. “I’d suggest you undo that, and go and tell Rusalka why it will no longer be born.”

“She…she doesn’t know,” Arkadios says, wincing a bit.

There are rules in their world, and rules among their family, more importantly. And even it was through ignorance, Berenike’s just crossed several rather big lines in the sand.

(At least, that’s the excuse Berenike will cling to with all her strength, if anyone asks.)

“Well, it’s good to know that Rusalka hasn’t completely lost her mind, living in the human world,” Papa-Lo says waspishly. “Honestly, considering what Artemisios has told me about Rusalka’s ambitions for the Sky-boy, it is the _height_ of idiocy for her to even keep away from Renato so fervently in the first place. She needs an in to the Mafia, if she intends on conquering it, and the boy is a perfect way to do so, especially if she put her head towards breaking the Curse. I had wondered why she didn’t take that option as it came, when Boda mentioned Renato…Though if you set the two of them at each other, I’m not surprised she didn’t think about approaching him. You’re too much like me, my girl.”

She sighs and Berenike flinches a bit, feeling shamed. The lines on Papa-Lo’s normally smooth and flawless face seemed pronounced, making her look tired and haggard.

“I-I’ll fix it, Papa-Lo,” she whispers, not used to the chastisement from the green-eyed goddess. In all the lives she’d lived, she’d never been used to being scolded.

She and Arkadios, after all, are the treasured youngest of the children of Loki.

And Papa-Lo’s eyes soften, just a bit. She brushes the hair out of Berenike’s eyes, and cups Arkadios’s cheek in her other hand.

“I know you want to keep Rusalka among us,” she says, and Berenike goes very still. “I _know_ , and I understand why perfectly well. It took me and Boda and the others some time to ease our protective greed over the girl’s mother, after all. But you can’t keep her caged. You can’t manipulate her and feed the impulses of her brain so that you get what you want- _don’t_ interrupt me, Váli.”

At her old, ancient name, Berenike goes quiet, her teeth snapping shut.

“Beyond even that, you are in a position to have your hands into the reworking of the Mafia. You could have your hands into a brand new powerbase for our people, where even the damned Aesir cannot touch us,” Papa-Lo says, so smoothly. “Imagine it, my daughters. A home beyond the Halls, where – if you play things right – none of our people could be touched. None of our family could be slaughtered or used against us ever again.”

Berenike nods quietly.

“Fix this. And I’d suggest you make your apologies to Rusalka, and be prepared for her rage. You’ve been using spells on her to impair her own judgement, and on Tsunayoshi Sawada too, haven’t you? To prejudice them even more against the idea of the Mafia and the human world?”

Arkadios sucks in a breath as Berenike doesn’t respond. The look on her face is of pure shock, and Berenike hurriedly turns away.

“I just…I just didn’t want to lose her again,” Berenike says quietly. “I don’t want them to hurt her like humans _always_ do, so that she goes away again. Like with Puck. And she’s so obstinate, she’d never listen. Not until it was too late. And it wasn’t anything much, really, I promise. Just…little things. Nothing bad, but it’s for good, isn’t it? So she’ll be with us? We can keep her safe, Papa-Lo. We _can_.”

Berenike hadn’t heard her cousin sing for so many, many weeks after their Aunt had brought her back from the shadowy rooms she’d been imprisoned in. She’d not spoken, only _stared_ , parts of her still trapped in that horrible place, no matter what they did to draw her out.

They could protect her better now, in the Halls. They could. They _would_.

“Beyond your misguided attempt at protecting your own heart, how do you think Rusalka would react, when she would have found this out?” Papa-Lo asks. “And how exactly are you protecting her, when you’re hurting her in the same – if a lesser – way as that fool Puck did? He used spells to twist her mind subtly against itself, after all. You _know_ this.”

Berenike’s eyes stung. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not to me that you should be saying sorry to, my girl. _Fix this_. And take the consequences as they come. I will be with Boda, when you are finished.”

Papa-Lo leaves, in a swirl of green silks and long black hair, with a frigid silence lingering behind her.

“…Damn it, Bere!” Arkadios snaps. “You used impairment spells on Myles _and_ Tsuna as well?”

“I thought if she didn’t think much about the Mafia and what she thought she needed to do to, she’d want to come home,” Berenike said, “I thought she’d be happier if she went back, and Tsuna came too-”

“ _Don’t_ , just,” Arkadios sighs, and puts her head in her hands. “Did you even think twice about what she’s going to do when she finds out that you used them on Tsunayoshi? Did you even think about what _Tsunayoshi_ would do when he finds this out? Or were they not supposed to ever know?”

Berenike doesn’t respond.

“You _know_ Myles a lot smarter than people give her credit for. She would have found out eventually. And gods all know this will cost us whatever respect Tsuna’s had for us to this point. Myles told him that Reborn and the Mafia would try to manipulate him and that we’d _protect_ him from that. And then you turned around and did the exact thing Myles said we’d make sure wouldn’t happen to him! You broke Tsuna’s trust and Myles’ word at the same time!”

Berenike winces. _Oathbreaker_ , is what her sister is implying. “I’ll take care of it,” she says quietly.

“And I’ll help,” Arkadios replies. “You’ll need someone to help you untangle this knot you’ve woven yourself into, and to help you weather the storm that will hit once Myles finds out what you’ve- _we’ve_ done.”

They work in silence for a time, carefully erasing the sigils and blood, twisting the symbols into harmlessness. The poison would have to manually drain from Renato’s body, but it would do so without harming him further.

“Arkadios?”

“Hm?”

“…how mad do you think Myles is going to be?”

Arkadios stops, and looks at Berenike.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I really don’t know. She’s never been stabbed in the back by one of her family, after all.”

“I didn’t stab her in the back-!”

“You used mental spells on her so that it would be easier for you to influence what she did out of a belief that you know her mind better than she, barely _ten goddamn years_ after we pulled the last of that shit Puck fucked up her head with off her! I know she’d forgive you for doing it to Reborn easily enough, because the little idiot is planning gods only know what with Tsuna and none of us knew what he was, but you did this to _Tsuna_ , who’s got Myles so wrapped around his little finger she’d do anything for him. How do you _think_ she’d going to see this? By the King, we’ll be lucky if either of them _ever_ forgive us.”

Berenike flinches, and closes her eyes.

* * *

There was a frantic rushing in her ears, and it took everything Myles had in her to pull it back.

She didn’t want to kill Gokudera. No, no, no, no, no, _no_.

Even moreso than Hibari, this was a _fourteen-year-old kid_. And not only that, he was a fourteen-year-old kid with some _serious_ PTSD and issues out the goddamn wazoo. She didn’t _want_ to kill him.

But there was a part of her, that roaring, _animal_ part of her that hated Yamamoto and wanted to rip out his throat whenever he smiled like Ariel used to, the part of her that wanted to kill Reborn in the most messy and vicious way she could think of (for crimes he’d not even committed yet), that really _did_ want to kill the silver-haired boy.

_He’d tried to kill Tsuna. He’d tried to kill **Tsuna** ,_ that part of her screeched. _Kill him!_

_He’s a fourteen-year-old kid who’s been heavily traumatized by the Mafia and his family, and has spent the past however many years working as a freelance hitman which did not help matters,_ she told it firmly. _He needs_ discipline _, not murdering. The only thing remotely close to teaching he received was from fucking_ Shamal _, of all people, and the gods all know that man should never have been allowed around impressionable children._

She did _not_ want to kill Gokudera.

Like Hibari, who was less so feral and snapping at her heels these days. They both of them had their territory (which, _really_. Where had that even come from to start with? In the manga it’d been comedy, but in real life it was just off-putting from a human) and respected each other.

The boy understood well enough that she was a far greater predator than him, and that he’d infringed on her territory – namely, Tsuna – and he also understood that he had been manipulated even before that, unthinkable to a boy who had his finger on the pulse point of everything that happened in Namimori, to frankly _ridiculous_ levels.

(Berenike and Arkadios had discovered that the boy was the scion of the infamous Hibari family, a powerful Yakuza clan. While he was not the heir to the family – that honor went to his eldest sister, a veritable force of nature even by Hibari standards – his father had handed over the town the Hibari had originated from and entrusted his son with keeping it safe…when he was _four_.

That, Myles had thought privately, said a great deal about the Hibari clan, and Hibari Kyōya in particular.)

She knew well enough that he’d be back to ‘challenge’ her, but for now she had peace in that quarter.

A hand on her arm brought her back to the present, and she turned to look down at Tsuna. His eyes were worried, and she worked even harder at pulling her otherself back, before she broke her glamour.

“Are you okay, Myles?” he asked, his voice worried.

Her mouth twitched, curling up from its snarl into a half smile.

“…Tsuna, what’s going on?” she asked instead, and it even came out halfway human.

Her mama would have been proud of her restraint.

Tsuna watched her for a second longer, and she gave most of her attention to him in return, though she kept half an eye on Gokudera and the tiny hitman sitting on the windowsill. It was the first time she’d really come face-to-face with the diminutive man, and he was pinging _all_ sorts of red flags.

She’d think on that strangeness later.

Tsuna explained things as he knew them to the best of his ability – Reborn had asked Gokudera to come and ‘kill’ Tsuna, and if he’d been successful, he would be given the title of Vongola Heir – and Myles paused.

…Something was off about that explanation.

Hell, even in her old life she’d never accepted that paltry excuse or the fact that Gokudera had seemingly bought it.

Tsuna was the only remaining (legitimate) heir to the Vongola line, and a descendant of Vongola Primo himself. Vongola would _slaughter_ Gokudera if he’d succeeded in killing Tsuna, and unless the boy was a lot stupider than he was in canon – which Myles doubted – he more than likely knew that.

_So would Reborn_.

…This was a smokescreen, just like she had suspected it had been in canon

But unlike in canon – where Reborn had likely done this for the dual purpose of giving Tsuna a right hand entrenched in the Mafia lifestyle (to influence him – Gokudera had been Tsuna’s first ever friend in the manga, after all) and to give Tsuna more chances to prove himself, if she had interpreted things correctly – this was for more reasons than just that.

Her gaze flicked to Reborn, who was watching her without an expression, but holding himself in a way she remembered well from her Mama. That absolute stillness of body that betrayed no hint of the fact that the person would and _could_ move instantly.

And just like that, she understood.

This was also a reminder to Tsuna – _you cannot escape the Mafia for long. You cannot escape me for long, and to try is a foolish thing_.

A threat, _if I can send this boy after you, imagine what I’ll do to everyone around you_. _Imagine what I will send next._

It would be all too easy to imagine how Tsuna’s thoughts would go, at least in this. He’d capitulate, because despite everything he’d been through, he still had people here he cared about – Kyoko, Hana, his mother, a few of the shop owners he visited on occasion, the ones who didn’t call him Dame-Tsuna. He didn't want them hurt.

And not only that, Reborn was likely very threatened by Myles, and the other women who’d closed ranks around Tsuna. None of them were – to an outsider – Mafia-material, and none of them were certainly anywhere near _male_ enough to be accepted among the future Decimo’s inner circle.

Gokudera Hayato – illegitimate and a freelancer though he was – was still _Mafia_. He’d gone to the proper schools, been raised by the proper people, and had done work for them too. He was also _male_.

In canon, Gokudera had been Tsuna’s first true friend – a boy well indoctrinated by the lies of the Mafia, and that had influenced Tsuna, even if only a little bit.

And all the others who’d come after – Yamamoto, Hibari, Sasagawa, Lambo, Mukuro (though there was Chrome too. But then again, Chrome had always been rather shafted by the attitude of the manga, and it had been heavily implied that she was only ever a vessel for the _real_ Mist Guardian) – they’d had roots in the criminal underground, or were strong enough (or stupid enough – though Myles thought fondly of Sasagawa Ryohei, he _was_ a bit of an idiot) for it to be a nonissue.

_They_ were an acceptable Inner Circle for a _Don_ not raised in Italy.

And Gokudera Hayato was far more acceptable to Reborn and the life he represented than Myles would _ever_ be.

Myles breathed through her nose, and had to beat down the urge to go for Gokudera’s throat with her teeth. It wasn’t the boy’s fault that he was being moved around like a pawn.

It was obvious now. Reborn wanted to take stock of Tsuna – his kindness and softness was well-known, even with Myles and her relatives deliberately interfering in CEDEF’s files – and the only result of this (everything combined with the fact that Reborn wouldn’t let Tsuna get terribly injured) would wind up with Gokudera putting himself in serious danger.

Danger that she knew – and she wouldn’t be surprised if Reborn knew as well – that Tsuna wouldn’t be able to ignore.

A perfect way to test what Tsuna could now do – perhaps even to use the Dying Will Bullet, which Reborn had not been able to use more than once since his arrival - a perfect way to endear Gokudera to him, and to put a wedge between Tsuna and Myles. The diminutive hitman had likely believed (alongside everything else about this whole mess the hitman had planned) that she would have killed Gokudera for trying to kill Tsuna, and that such a thing would not make Tsuna look kindly on her.

And he was mostly right. Tsuna hadn’t known her long enough to be comfortable with the more vicious side of her, and if she’d killed Gokudera…

Well, that wasn’t an issue, because Gokudera wasn’t at fault for this colossal mess and _she wasn’t going to kill him_. No matter how much that part of her wanted to.

Myles straightened her back, and focused her attention on Reborn. Gokudera was not a threat, and she was more than quick enough to pluck his dynamite out of the air if he tried throwing them.

Reborn was still watching her.

“Arcobaleno,” Myles acknowledged, and tried not to smirk as he stiffened.

It was movement small enough to be missed by most, but Myles had spent years learning how to read her opponents. She saw it, and she knew that _he_ knew that she’d seen it.

He reminded her, in the strangest of ways, of some of her relatives, with the watchful air and overly-sharp gaze. She couldn’t place exactly where – and the quiet decay of the curse clinging to him threw her off – but still…Maybe it was just because he was a hitman, and the ‘World’s Greatest’ at that. And, of course, she’d never met an Arcobaleno. So this…strangeness could very well be the fault of the curse.

“Delano,” he replied, the gravity of his bearing at complete odds with the childish lilt of his voice.

“You want to tell me the reasoning for sending this idiot out to try and kill Tsuna?”

His head tilted to the side. “Tsunayoshi already told you,” he said, his voice just barely mocking. Myles had to fight the urge to smirk again. Little shit.

(Why had she never tried this dance of words with him before? He was good, yes, good enough to amuse and to be a challenge, and there were few people in the human world who could match her. But he was not Fae, with whom she had to watch her every word for fear of what would happen. She could have fun with this kid.

She could see if it really was worth it, the whole Mafia business.

So why had she never even _thought_ about…?)

Myles cocked an eyebrow at Gokudera. “You don’t seem like a complete idiot,” she drawled, and watched the silver-haired boy stiffen. “You should be well aware that Vongola would kill you before they let you hurt their heir, yes?”

Gokudera’s eyes narrowed, and Myles stifled a sigh. If he was going to be Tsuna’s Storm, then Myles was definitely going to have to work at curbing that hotheaded side of him. At least it wouldn’t be half so annoying as doing the same for Hibari – if he even wound up being Tsuna’s Cloud this time around.

(Which, that reminded her, she really needed to take a closer look at who she wanted in among Tsuna’s Inner Circle, and who best fit with him. She’d already pegged Kyoko as Tsuna’s future Mist, but she did rather adore Chrome. Ryohei was definitely going to be the Sun Guardian, because he was the closest thing to Lee-senpai she could have in this world.

…she hadn’t given this nearly as much thought as she should have. She should have had all of this squared away _weeks_ ago, so that she could approach Reborn from the higher ground once he’d gotten frustrated.

So why hadn’t she?)

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he spat, and dynamite rained from the sky.

Myles shifted on her heels and her hands blurred into motion, batting all the dynamite away before they even got close to her and Tsuna.

“Double Bomb!”

More dynamite poured towards her, hurled with shaky aim by Gokudera, who was steadily growing more and more infuriated. She knocked them aside with lazy grace, fighting the urge not to sigh. The boy had talent, but it wasn’t all that impressive.

(Beyond the quantity, of course. Where _was_ the boy getting them all?)

Though that could be because he was up against her, and she had been cutting her teeth against some of the greatest fighters in all of mythology since she’d been able to walk-

“Triple Bomb!’

…did the boy have _any_ other weapons than dynamite? Myles herself may have specialized in hand-to-hand combat, but she’d also been trained to handle a sword and dozens of other weapons. Overreliance on any one thing (and not just weapons!) had been trained out of her at an early age.

Myles would have to ensure that he wound up receiving training from one of her cousins – perhaps Melanippe, sister to Antiope, would suffice? She was an excellent trainer, and well used to dealing with hotheads. And she respected intelligence and trauma, and could work with the former, and easy with the latter.

“ _Quadruple Bomb!!_ ”

Myles sighed as the boy pulled a frankly ridiculous amount of dynamite from the ether. Really, she would have to ask him where in the world he got them all when all was said and done-

Then-

Gokudera dropped several of the bombs, still lit, and they landed around his feet, the rest spilling from his frustrated hands. Myles saw the fear that crossed his face, and then, on the heels of it, resignation.

_He’s only fourteen_ , the part of her still lingering from her past life said, horrified. _He’s only a child._

Then wind rushed by her-

_Tsuna?!_

Brown hair, a Sky flame flickering, and Tsuna-

Tsuna was in range of the bombs, as he knocked Gokudera over, protecting the boy with his own body.

Myles felt the world bend under her rage, and she was gone too. She called every magic she knew, to her fingers and legs, for speed and protection-

The six dozen bombs went off, and Myles let the magic, and her fists, fly free.

* * *

Gokudera Hayato is not a fool.

(Well, he tries not to be. You don't live long in the Mafia if you're an idiot.)

He knows that the Vongola won’t let him become their heir, even if he does manage to kill that civilian kid. He knows that Reborn’s talking out of his ass about the whole deal, but what else was he supposed to do?

When Reborn – when the Vongola – tells you to jump, _you_ _jump_.

There’s no question about it. He’s learned well in his years as a freelancer, and while the Vongola aren’t like other Families he’s worked for, well. They’re still _Vongola_ , and Reborn is one of their best.

Maybe it’s that reason that has him dropping his bombs, frustration and fear and the feeling of being backed into a corner. He never expected the civilian kid to have someone like that girl – what had Reborn called her? _Delano_ , with respect and wariness – as a bodyguard.

She doesn’t take him seriously from the start, watches him like he’s a boy playing at being a man, and maybe that’s why he fumbles.

(In truth, he doesn't want to think all that hard as to why his dynamite, which has never failed him before, fails him _now_.)

_This is the end_ , Gokudera Hayato thinks.

(And maybe, just maybe - though he'll never admit it, and not even to himself - he thinks _Mother_.)

Then there’s a body slamming into his, knocking him over. He feels something like crashing tides, something warm. Like a shield, protecting him.

Gokudera Hayato opens his eyes, and gazes into burning orange ones.

There’s a whistling wind, the sound of explosions being knocked away, and he knows that this civilian boy, this Sawada Tsunayoshi, has just put his life on the line to save the life of a boy who tried to kill him.

(What’s worth saving about _him_ , he wonders, a tight pain at the back of his throat. He’s only a stupid bastard, a kid no one wanted. An idiot no one ever needed.)

When the wind dies down, when the explosions have died away, the kid – Sawada – rolls off him, but leaves a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you all right?” he asks, and Gokudera’s throat seizes.

“Tsuna,” says Delano, who had knocked the majority of the blasts away from Sawada’s back. “Sawada Tsunayoshi, I am going to fucking _murder you_.”

Sawada blanches, and he watches as the two of them bicker – well, more like Delano mother-henning Sawada and Sawada sheepishly submitting to it. And Sawada never takes his hand away from Gokudera’s shoulder.

And Delano…Delano looks at him once, like she’s weighing him up. Then she looks away, smiling in a way that leaves him feeling even more flustered, like he’s passed a test he didn’t even know was placed before him.

She opens her mouth to speak, but then Gokudera hears a gagging noise. All three of them turn to see Reborn, curled on the ground, blood dripping from his mouth as he vomits.

The bile burns through the ground as it drips from Reborn’s mouth, and Gokudera’s eyes go huge as the hitman’s body contorts. An arm grows to adult-length, then a leg, before snapping back to the toddler-esque proportions of before.

Reborn makes an agonized noise, and as he thrashes, Gokudera sees the hitman’s face _ripple_.

Delano swears, and flies to the downed hitman’s side.

She cradles him in her arms, holding tight even as his body _bulges_ , like it’s trying to grow to the length of an adult in the space of a second, only to be stopped by…he doesn’t know what. It’s a horrifying sight.

Delano strokes her fingers in an unexpectedly tender motion over Reborn’s contorting face, and recognition and shock passes across her own. And on its heels is something dark, something _dangerous_.

When she speaks next, it’s in a language he doesn’t know. But he does know that simmering rage, and something deep inside him wants to run shrieking from it.

“ _Berenike_ ,” she whispers. “ _Berenike_ , _hva gjorde du*_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES  
> *hva gjorde du – Norwegian, and very roughly translates to what did you do?
> 
> I have had an incredibly shitty time of it, if you want to know why I haven’t paid much attention to my fic lately. I am the only person bringing in a paycheck to my family as of two days ago, my hours have been cut at work (as punishment for not wanting to work in the back, with a bunch of very sexist and racist guys), I’ve been looking for another job, I have had to spend some time at the hospital (for various reasons), and also a very good friend of mine passed away a couple of days ago.
> 
> Thanks for being patient.


	11. NOT A CHAPTER NOT A CHAPTER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a problem, and this story has a problem, too.

**Just to reiterate, this isn't a chapter!**

This is more of an...explanation, of sorts. And an apology.

 

I've always categorized myself as a 'spontaneous' writer. Metaphorically flying from the seat of my pants, and what have you, whenever I sit down to write.

But I'm not, really, and I'm just starting to realize that. Every single one of my stories has something of an outline (even if just a very brief one), profiles for characters, files for worldbuilding/timelines tucked away in my computer. Even stories I've not yet posted have that.

 **strike twice** , however, does not. 

When it comes to my multi-chaptered stories that have held my attention - On the Ocean Blue, Louder than Words, The Heart Has Its Reasons - I've always known (at the very least) what the endgame is for those stories...even if getting to said endgame isn't the easiest thing in the world.

I don't have that for **strike twice** , and I don't know what I want to get from it. I still like the idea I had - I just don't know where I want to take that idea. And that's a problem.

So this story will be shortly put on the backburner. But never fear!

I will only be putting this story on hiatus so I can take a good long look at it, revamp it, and make it better than it was before...Or at least more cohesive. Then I _will_ be reposting it.

But, for now, I apologize for the inconvenience, and I hope you all can forgive me.


End file.
